cypress-cucumber-preprocessor
Advanced tools
The cypress-cucumber-preprocessor npm package allows you to use Cucumber with Cypress for behavior-driven development (BDD). It enables you to write your test scenarios in Gherkin syntax and execute them using Cypress.
Gherkin Syntax Support
This feature allows you to write test scenarios in Gherkin syntax, which is a human-readable format. The above code demonstrates a simple login feature with a scenario for successful login.
Feature: Login functionality
Scenario: Successful login
Given I am on the login page
When I enter valid credentials
Then I should see the dashboardStep Definitions
Step definitions map the Gherkin steps to actual Cypress commands. The code sample shows how to define steps for visiting the login page, entering credentials, and verifying the dashboard URL.
const { Given, When, Then } = require('cypress-cucumber-preprocessor/steps');
Given('I am on the login page', () => {
cy.visit('/login');
});
When('I enter valid credentials', () => {
cy.get('input[name=username]').type('user');
cy.get('input[name=password]').type('password');
cy.get('button[type=submit]').click();
});
Then('I should see the dashboard', () => {
cy.url().should('include', '/dashboard');
});Tagging Scenarios
You can tag scenarios to categorize and filter them during test execution. The code sample shows a scenario tagged with @smoke, which can be used to run only smoke tests.
Feature: Login functionality
@smoke
Scenario: Successful login
Given I am on the login page
When I enter valid credentials
Then I should see the dashboardCucumber is a tool for running automated tests written in plain language. It supports various programming languages and frameworks, including JavaScript. Unlike cypress-cucumber-preprocessor, Cucumber is not tied to any specific testing framework and can be used with different test runners.
jest-cucumber allows you to use Cucumber-style Gherkin syntax with Jest. It integrates Gherkin scenarios with Jest test cases, providing a similar BDD approach. However, it is designed to work with Jest rather than Cypress.
CodeceptJS is an end-to-end testing framework that supports BDD-style testing with Gherkin syntax. It can integrate with various test runners and libraries, including WebDriver, Puppeteer, and TestCafe. CodeceptJS offers more flexibility in choosing the underlying test execution engine compared to cypress-cucumber-preprocessor.
The cypress-cucumber-preprocessor adds support for using feature files when testing with Cypress.
You can follow the documentation below, or if you prefer to hack on a working example, take a look at https://github.com/TheBrainFamily/cypress-cucumber-example
Install the plugin by running:
npm install --save-dev cypress-cucumber-preprocessor
Add it to your plugins:
cypress/plugins/index.js
const cucumber = require('cypress-cucumber-preprocessor').default
module.exports = (on, config) => {
on('file:preprocessor', cucumber())
}
Add support for feature files to your Cypress configuration
cypress.json
{
"testFiles": "**/*.feature"
}
Please make use of cosmiconfig to create a configuration for the plugin, for example, by adding this section to your package.json:
"cypress-cucumber-preprocessor": {
"nonGlobalStepDefinitions": true
}
This will become the default option in a future version
| Option | Default value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| commonPath | cypress/integration/common when nonGlobalStepDefinitions is true cypress/support/step_definitions when nonGlobalStepDefinitions is false ${nonGlobalStepBaseDir}/common when nonGlobalStepBaseDir is defined | Define the path to a folder containing all common step definitions of your tests. When nonGlobalStepBaseDir is defined this path is defined from that base location. e.g ${nonGlobalStepBaseDir}/${commonPath}. |
| nonGlobalStepDefinitions | false | If true use the Cypress Cucumber Preprocessor Style pattern for placing step definitions files. If false, we will use the "oldschool" (everything is global) Cucumber style. |
| nonGlobalStepBaseDir | undefined | If defined and nonGlobalStepDefinitions is also true then step definition searches for folders with the features name will start from the directory provided here. The cwd is already taken into account. e.g test/step_definitions. |
| stepDefinitions | cypress/integration when nonGlobalStepDefinitions is true cypress/support/step_definitions when nonGlobalStepDefinitions is false | Path to the folder containing our step definitions. |
Put your feature files in cypress/integration/
Example: cypress/integration/Google.feature
Feature: Google Main Page
I want to open a search engine
@focus
Scenario: Opening a search engine page
Given I open Google page
Then I see "Google" in the title
The @focus tag is not necessary, but we want to you to notice it so you look it up below. It will speed up your workflow significantly!
When running Cypress tests in a headless mode, the execution time can get pretty bloated, this happens because by default Cypress will relaunch the browser between every feature file. The cypress-cucumber-preprocessor gives you the option to bundle all feature files before running the tests, therefore reducing the execution time.
You can take advantage of this by creating .features files. You choose to have only one in the root of the directory cypress/integrations or per directory.
You also have to add support for .features files to your Cypress configuration
cypress.json
{
"testFiles": "**/*.{feature,features}"
}
To run the bundled tests:
cypress run --spec **/*.features
This is the RECOMMENDED way
The .feature file will use steps definitions from a directory with the same name as your .feature file. The javascript files containing the step definitions can have other names if you want to break them into different concerns.
Easier to show than to explain, so, assuming the feature file is in cypress/integration/Google.feature , as proposed above, the preprocessor will read all the files inside cypress/integration/Google/, so:
cypress/integration/Google/google.js (or any other .js file in the same path)
import { Given } from "cypress-cucumber-preprocessor/steps";
const url = 'https://google.com'
Given('I open Google page', () => {
cy.visit(url)
})
This is a good place to put before/beforeEach/after/afterEach hooks related to that particular feature. This is incredibly hard to get right with pure cucumber.
We also have a way to create reusable step definitions. Put them in cypress/integration/common/
Example: cypress/integration/common/i_see_string_in_the_title.js
import { Then } from "cypress-cucumber-preprocessor/steps";
Then(`I see {string} in the title`, (title) => {
cy.title().should('include', title)
})
This is a good place to put global before/beforeEach/after/afterEach hooks.
We use https://docs.cucumber.io/cucumber/cucumber-expressions/ to parse your .feature file, please use that document as your reference
Since Given/When/Then are on global scope please use
/* global Given, When, Then */
to make IDE/linter happy or import them directly as shown in the above examples.
To create steps that use gherkin data tables, the step definition needs to take an object and handle it like in these examples: Example Feature, Example Step Definition.
Thanks to @Oltodo we can now use Custom Parameter Type Resolves. Here is an example with related .feature file
The cypress-cucumber-preprocessor supports both Mocha's before/beforeEach/after/afterEach hooks and Cucumber's Before and After hooks.
The Cucumber hooks implementation fully supports tagging as described in the cucumber js documentation. So they can be conditionally selected based on the tags applied to the Scenario. This is not possible with Mocha hooks.
Cucumber Before hooks run after all Mocha before and beforeEach hooks have completed and the Cucumber After hooks run before all the Mocha afterEach and after hooks.
Example:
const {
Before,
After,
Given,
Then
} = require("cypress-cucumber-preprocessor/steps");
// this will get called before each scenario
Before(() => {
beforeCounter += 1;
beforeWithTagCounter = 0;
});
// this will only get called before scenarios tagged with @foo
Before({ tags: "@foo" }, () => {
beforeWithTagCounter += 1;
});
Given("My Step Definition", () => {
// ...test code here
})
Note: to avoid confusion with the similarly named Mocha before and after hooks, the Cucumber hooks are not exported onto global scope. So they need explicitly importing as shown above.
Adding a background section to your feature will enable you to run steps before every scenario. For example, we have a counter that needs to be reset before each scenario. We can create a given step for resetting the counter.
let counter = 0;
Given("counter has been reset", () => {
counter = 0;
});
When("counter is incremented", () => {
counter += 1;
});
Then("counter equals {int}", value => {
expect(counter).to.equal(value);
});
Feature: Background Section
Background:
Given counter has been reset
Scenario: Basic example #1
When counter is incremented
Then counter equals 1
Scenario: Basic example #2
When counter is incremented
When counter is incremented
Then counter equals 2
You can share context between step definitions using cy.as() alias.
Example:
Given('I go to the add new item page', () => {
cy.visit('/addItem');
});
When('I add a new item', () => {
cy.get('input[name="addNewItem"]').as('addNewItemInput');
cy.get('@addNewItemInput').type('My item');
cy.get('button[name="submitItem"]').click();
})
Then('I see new item added', () => {
cy.get('td:contains("My item")');
});
Then('I can add another item', () => {
expect(cy.get('@addNewItemInput').should('be.empty');
});
For more information please visit: https://docs.cypress.io/api/commands/as.html
Start your tests without setting any tags. And then put a @focus on the scenario (or scenarios) you want to focus on while development or bug fixing.
For example:
Feature: Smart Tagging
As a cucumber cypress plugin which handles Tags
I want to allow people to select tests to run if focused
So they can work more efficiently and have a shorter feedback loop
Scenario: This scenario should not run if @focus is on another scenario
Then this unfocused scenario should not run
@focus
Scenario: This scenario is focused and should run
Then this focused scenario should run
@this-tag-affects-nothing
Scenario: This scenario should also not run
Then this unfocused scenario should not run
@focus
Scenario: This scenario is also focused and also should run
Then this focused scenario should run
Run your Cypress Launcher the way you would usually do, for example:
./node_modules/.bin/cypress open
click on a .feature file on the list of specs, and see the magic happening!
You can use tags to select which test should run using cucumber's tag expressions.
Keep in mind we are using newer syntax, eg. 'not @foo and (@bar or @zap)'.
In order to initialize tests using tags you will have to run cypress and pass TAGS environment variable.
Example:
./node_modules/.bin/cypress-tags run -e TAGS='not @foo and (@bar or @zap)'
Please note - we use our own cypress-tags wrapper to speed things up. This wrapper calls the cypress executable from local modules and if not found it falls back to the globally installed one. For more details and examples please take a look to the example repo.
You can also use tags to skip or ignore specific tests/scenarios when running cypress test runner (where you don't have the abilitiy to pass parameters like in the examples above for the execution)
The trick consists in adding the "env" property with the "TAGS" subproperty in the cypress.json configuration file. It would look something like this:
{
"env": {
"TAGS": "not @ignore"
},
//rest of configuration options
"baseUrl": "yourBaseUrl",
"ignoreTestFiles": "*.js",
//etc
}
Then, any scenarios tagged with @ignore will be skipped when running the tests using the cypress test runner
You can use a glob expression to select which feature files should be included.
Example:
./node_modules/.bin/cypress-tags run -g 'cypress/integration/**/*.feature'
or
./node_modules/.bin/cypress-tags run --glob 'cypress/integration/**/*.feature'
or
DEPRECATED
This will not work if your glob pattern contains commas since Cypress expects comma delimited string of env variables.
./node_modules/.bin/cypress-tags run -e GLOB='cypress/integration/**/*.feature'
The cypress-cucumber-preprocessor can generate a cucumber.json file output as it runs the features files. This is separate from, and in addition to, any Mocha reporter configured in Cypress.
These files are intended to be used with one of the many available Cucumber report generator packages. Seems to work fine with both https://github.com/jenkinsci/cucumber-reports-plugin and https://github.com/wswebcreation/multiple-cucumber-html-reporter
Output, by default, is written to the folder cypress/cucumber-json, and one file is generated per feature.
This behaviour is configurable. Use cosmiconfig to create a configuration for the plugin, see step definition discussion above and add the following to the cypress-cucumber-preprocessor section in package.json to turn it off or change the defaults:
"cypress-cucumber-preprocessor": {
"cucumberJson": {
"generate": true,
"outputFolder": "cypress/cucumber-json",
"filePrefix": "",
"fileSuffix": ".cucumber"
}
}
| Option | Default value | Description |
|---|---|---|
| outputFolder | cypress/cucumber-json | The folder to write the files to |
| filePrefix | '' (no prefix) | A separate json file is generated for each feature based on the name of the feature file. All generated file names will be prefixed with this option if specified |
| fileSuffix | .cucumber | A suffix to add to each generated filename |
| generate | false | Flag to output cucumber.json or not |
Note, only WebStorm 2019.2 and later versions are able to resolve steps located outside of a step_definitions folder
Intellij IDEA Community Edition does not support cucumber in javascript, but the Ultimate Edition can provide the same level support for step resolution as WebStorm.
To enable cucumber step resolution in Intellij IDEA Ulimate edition you will need to download and enable the JetBrains Cucumber JS plugin. In WebStorm this plugin is already bundled into the distribution.
To get vscode to resolve your steps, install the Cucumber (Gherkin) Full Support extension from the marketplace.
You will also need to tell the extension the locations of your feature and step definition files as described here.
Note, that unlike WebStorm which will correctly identify multiple implementations of matching steps, the vscode extension currently resolves to the first matching occurence it finds on its path.
Install the plug-in type definitions:
npm install --save-dev @types/cypress-cucumber-preprocessor
As of Cypress
v4.4.0, TypeScript
is supported out-of-the-box. To use it, add this to your plugins/index.js:
const browserify = require('@cypress/browserify-preprocessor');
const cucumber = require('cypress-cucumber-preprocessor').default;
const resolve = require('resolve');
module.exports = (on, config) => {
const options = {
...browserify.defaultOptions,
typescript: resolve.sync('typescript', { baseDir: config.projectRoot }),
};
on('file:preprocessor', cucumber(options));
};
You can also use a Webpack loader to process feature files (TypeScript supported). To see how it is done please take a look here: cypress-cucumber-webpack-typescript-example
If you want to use TypeScript, add this to your plugins/index.js:
const cucumber = require("cypress-cucumber-preprocessor").default;
const browserify = require("@cypress/browserify-preprocessor");
module.exports = (on) => {
const options = browserify.defaultOptions;
options.browserifyOptions.plugin.unshift(['tsify']);
// Or, if you need a custom tsconfig.json for your test files:
// options.browserifyOptions.plugin.unshift(['tsify', {project: 'path/to/other/tsconfig.json'}]);
on("file:preprocessor", cucumber(options));
};
...and install tsify. I'm assuming you already have typescript installed. :-)
npm install tsify
Then in your .ts files you need to make sure you either require/import the functions defining step definitions, or declare them as global:
declare const Given, When, Then;
// OR
import { Given, Then, When } from "cypress-cucumber-preprocessor/steps";
To see an example take a look here: https://github.com/TheBrainFamily/cypress-cucumber-typescript-example/
Install all dependencies:
npm install
Link the package:
npm link
npm link cypress-cucumber-preprocessor
Run tests:
npm test
This repo uses commitizen to manage commits messages and semantic-release to use those commit messages to automatically release this package with proper release version.
If you are confused please ask questions or/and read the documentation of these two fantastic tools! As far as the development goes, you should just do git commit from the command line, and commitizen will guide you through creating a proper commit message.
Please let me know if you find any issues or have suggestions for improvements by opening a new issue.
Based/inspired by the great work from gherkin-testcafe, although, with this package we don't have to run Cypress programmatically - with an external runner, we can use Cypress as we are used to :)
Thanks to the Cypress team for the fantastic work and very exciting tool! :-)
Thanks to @fcurella for fantastic work with making the cypress-cucumber-preprocessor reactive to file changes. :-)
Not recommended. Please let us know if you decide to use it!
The problem with the legacy structure is that everything is global. This is problematic for multiple reasons.
.feature files that read nicely - you have to make sure you are not stepping on toes of already existing step definitions. You should be able to write your tests without worrying about reusability, complex regexp matches, or anything like that. Just write a story. Explain what you want to see without getting into the details. Reuse in the .js files, not in something you should consider an always up-to-date, human-readable documentation.Let's look how this differs with the proposed structure. Assuming you want to have a hook before ./Google.feature file, just create a ./Google/before.js and put the hook there. This should take care of long requested feature - https://github.com/TheBrainFamily/cypress-cucumber-preprocessor/issues/25
If you have a few tests the "oldschool" style is completely fine. But for a large enterprise-grade application, with hundreds or sometimes thousands of .feature files, the fact that everything is global becomes a maintainability nightmare.
We suggest to put:
"ignoreTestFiles": "*.js"
in your cypress.json to have a clean view of your tests in the cypress dashbord, and also so cypress doesn't try to run your step definition files as tests in CI.
Step definition files are by default in: cypress/support/step_definitions. If you want to put them somewhere please use cosmiconfig format. For example, add to your package.json :
"cypress-cucumber-preprocessor": {
"step_definitions": "cypress/support/step_definitions/"
}
Follow your configuration or use the defaults and put your step definitions in cypress/support/step_definitions
Examples: cypress/support/step_definitions/google.js
import { Given } from "cypress-cucumber-preprocessor/steps";
const url = 'https://google.com'
Given('I open Google page', () => {
cy.visit(url)
})
cypress/support/step_definitions/shared.js
import { Then } from "cypress-cucumber-preprocessor/steps";
Then(`I see {string} in the title`, (title) => {
cy.title().should('include', title)
})
FAQs
Run gherkin-syntaxed specs with cypress.io
The npm package cypress-cucumber-preprocessor receives a total of 176,114 weekly downloads. As such, cypress-cucumber-preprocessor popularity was classified as popular.
We found that cypress-cucumber-preprocessor demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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