Understanding Cypress and Your Back End
When integrating testing into your development process with Cypress, it is crucial to grasp the interplay between the testing framework and your application's back end. Cypress communicates with your application's server, often via JSON, to check the responses your front end receives.
State Management in Tests
Proper state management is essential for end-to-end (e2e) testing. Using Cypress commands like cy.exec(), cy.task(), and cy.request(), you can set up and tear down states to create the environment needed for your tests.
Seeding Test Data
You may need a database in a specific state to test different features, such as an empty state or pagination. Seeding the database before each test ensures that you start with the right conditions. This is done by running executable scripts or writing custom commands for seeding in your test environment.
Simplifying with Stubs
Alternatively, you can accelerate testing by stubbing network requests and bypassing the server. Stubs enable you to simulate server responses, allowing your tests to run faster. However, you must ensure that the stub data corresponds to the data your server would actually send to avoid false test passes.
Best Practices and Anti-Patterns
Start with a Local Server
Starting a local development server rather than testing against a production server has numerous advantages. It allows you to control the environment, take shortcuts, seed data, disable security features for testing, and reset the server or database state as needed.
Avoid Shoehorning Tests
Writing tests after the application is built can lead to more challenges than writing them alongside development. To lower initial hurdles, it is best to include tests from the beginning of the development process.
Smoke Tests
While the majority of tests should ideally use stubbed data for speed and simplicity, it's still wise to have a few smoke tests that use real data to ensure everything functions correctly in a live environment.
Cypress Configuration for Your App
Basic Configuration
You can configure Cypress to match your development settings, such as setting the baseUrl in the configuration file cypress.config.js or cypress.config.ts. This means you can use cy.visit('/') to access your local server without specifying the full URL.
Extensive Configuration Options
Cypress offers a multitude of configuration options for tweaking its behavior to suit your needs. These adjustments range from setting default timeouts and environment variables to selecting specific test reporters.
Effective Authentication Testing
Testing authentication effectively is often one of the hardest parts of e2e testing. However, Cyprus provides both conventional approaches and innovative methods to handle this efficiently.
Coverage for Login Flows
Ensure that mission-critical flows, like signup and login, are covered. Tests should be devised to handle various scenarios such as invalid credentials, complex password requirements, and edge cases like locked or deleted accounts.
Custom Commands and cy.session()
Craft custom commands, like cy.login(), to streamline repetitive tasks like logging in before tests. Additionally, the cy.session() command can retain the login state across tests, significantly reducing test suite runtime.
Third-Party Authentication
Handling third-party authentication services (e.g., Auth0, Okta) is made possible with commands like cy.origin() and strategies outlined in the Authentication Recipes provided by Cypress.
Real-world Testing Strategies
Stubbing Network Requests
Utilize stubbing as a primary strategy for speeding up test execution. Although care must be taken to ensure fixture stubs are accurate, Cypress provides a guide for handling network requests, giving you confidence in mocking server interactions.
Test Environment Setup
Configuring the testing environment before each test run ensures your tests start from a known state. Commands like cy.exec() for system commands or requests to test-specific routes can be used to configure this setup efficiently.
Exploring Cypress Guides
Once you have set up the basics, you might want to delve into Cypress's other resources, like tutorial videos, API documentation, and the Real World App (RWA) examples, to deepen your understanding and use of Cypress in testing scenarios.
Now that you've acquainted yourself with the essentials of Cypress testing, it's time to apply these practices to your app. With careful setup and strategic use of Cypress's capabilities, you can create a robust testing suite that greatly enhances the quality of your application.
Tags: #Cypress #Testing #E2ETesting #TestAutomation
https://docs.cypress.io/guides/end-to-end-testing/testing-your-app
