Cypress is a test runner built for the modern web. It has a lot of great features:
- Time travel
- Real-time reloads
- Automatic waiting
- Spies, stubs, and clocks
- Network traffic control
- Screenshots and videos
Setting Up Cypress
Info about Cypress Component Testing can be found here
If the @nx/cypress
package is not installed, install the version that matches your nx
package version.
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yarn add --dev @nx/cypress
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npm install --save-dev @nx/cypress
E2E Testing
By default, when creating a new frontend application, Nx will use Cypress to create the e2e tests project.
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nx g @nx/web:app frontend
Creating a Cypress E2E project for an existing project
To generate an E2E project based on an existing project, run the following generator
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nx g @nx/cypress:cypress-project your-app-name-e2e --project=your-app-name
Optionally, you can use the --baseUrl
option if you don't want cypress plugin to serve your-app-name
.
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nx g @nx/cypress:cypress-project your-app-name-e2e --baseUrl=http://localhost:4200
Replace your-app-name
with the app's name as defined in your tsconfig.base.json
file or the name
property of your package.json
.
Testing Applications
Run nx e2e frontend-e2e
to execute e2e tests with Cypress.
You can run your e2e test against a production build by using the production
configuration
❯
nx e2e frontend-e2e --configuration=production
You can use the --spec
flag to glob for test files
# run the tests in the smoke/ directory
nx e2e frontend-e2e --spec=**smoke/**
# run the tests in smoke/ directory and with dashboard in the file name
nx e2e frontend-e2e --spec=**smoke/**,**dashboard.cy**
By default, Cypress will run in headless mode. You will have the result of all the tests and errors (if any) in your terminal. Screenshots and videos will be accessible in dist/cypress/apps/frontend/screenshots
and dist/cypress/apps/frontend/videos
.
Watching for Changes (Headed Mode)
With, nx e2e frontend-e2e --watch
Cypress will start in headed mode where you can see your application being tested.
Running Cypress with --watch
is a great way to enhance dev workflow - you can build up test files with the application running and Cypress will re-run those tests as you enhance and add to the suite.
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nx e2e frontend-e2e --watch
Specifying a Custom Url to Test
The baseUrl
property provides you the ability to test an application hosted on a specific domain.
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nx e2e frontend-e2e --baseUrl=https://frontend.com
If no
baseUrl
and nodevServerTarget
are provided, Cypress will expect to have thebaseUrl
property in the cypress config file, or will error.
Using cypress.config.ts
If you need to fine tune your Cypress setup, you can do so by modifying cypress.config.ts
in the project root. For instance, you can easily add your projectId
to save all the screenshots and videos into your Cypress dashboard. The complete configuration is documented on the official website.
For adding more dynamic configurations to your cypress configuration, you can look into using setupNodeEvents configuration option.
Environment Variables
If you're needing to pass a variable to cypress that you wish to not commit to your repository, i.e. API keys, or dynamic values based on configurations, i.e. API Urls. This is where Cypress environment variables can be used.
There are a handful of ways to pass environment variables to Cypress, but the most common is going to be via the cypress.env.json
file, the env executor option for cypress or the commandline.
Create a cypress.env.json
file in the projects root i.e. apps/my-cool-app-e2e/cypress.env.json
. Cypress will automatically pick up this file. This method is helpful for configurations that you want to not commit. Just don't forget to add the file to the .gitignore
and add documentation so people in your repo know what values to popluate in their local copy of the cypress.env.json
file.
Using @nx/cypress:cypress env executor option is a good way to add values you want to define that you don't mine commit to the repository, such as a base API url. You can leverage target configurations to define different values as well.
Optionally, you can pass environment variables via the commandline with the --env
flag.
When using the --env
flag, this will not be merged with any values used in the env
executor option.
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nx e2e frontend-e2e --env.API_URL="https://api.my-nx-website.com" --env.API_KEY="abc-123"