Laravel + Cypress Integration

This package provides the necessary boilerplate to quickly begin testing your Laravel applications using Cypress.

Installation

Begin by installing the package as a Composer development-only dependency.

composer require --dev laracasts/cypress

If you haven't yet pulled in Cypress through npm, that's your next step:

npm install cypress --save-dev && npx cypress open

Next, generate the necessary Laravel Cypress boilerplate:

php artisan cypress:boilerplate

The final step is one you'll perform regardless of whether you use this package or not. Update your cypress.json file with the baseUrl of your application.

{
  "baseUrl": "http://my-app.test"
}

When making requests in your Cypress tests, this baseUrl will be prepended to any relative URL you provide.

cy.visit('/foo'); // http://my-app.test/foo

Environment Handling

After running the php artisan cypress:boilerplate command, you'll now have a .env.cypress file in your project root. To get you started, this file is a duplicate of .env. Feel free to update it as needed to prepare your application for your Cypress tests.

Likely, you'll want to use a special database to ensure that your Cypress acceptance tests are isolated from your local database.

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_DATABASE=cypress

When running your Cypress tests, this package will automatically back up your primary .env file, and swap it out with env.cypress. Once complete, of course the environment files will be reset to how they originally were.

All Cypress tests run according to the environment specified in .env.cypress.

Usage

This package will add a variety of commands to your Cypress workflow to make for a more familiar Laravel testing environment.

We allow for this by exposing a handful of Cypress-specific endpoints in your application. Don't worry: these endpoints will never be accessible in production.

cy.login()

Create a new user record matching the optional attributes provided and set it as the authenticated user for the test.

test('authenticated users can see the dashboard', () => {
  cy.login({ name: 'John Doe' });

  cy.visit('/dashboard').contains('Welcome Back, John Doe!');
});

cy.logout()

Log out the currently authenticated user. Equivalent to auth()->logout().

test('once a user logs out they cannot see the dashboard', () => {
  cy.login({ name: 'John Doe' });

  cy.visit('/dashboard').contains('Welcome Back, John Doe!');

  cy.logout();

  cy.visit('/dashboard').assertRedirect('/login');
});

cy.create()

Use Laravel factories to create and persist a new Eloquent record.

test('it shows blog posts', () => {
  cy.create('App\\Post', { title: 'My First Post' });

  cy.visit('/posts').contains('My First Post');
});

Note that the cy.create() call above is equivalent to:

factory('App\Post')->create(['title' => 'My First Post']);

You may optionally specify the number of records you require as the second argument. If provided, the attributes can be provided as the third argument.

test('it shows blog posts', () => {
  cy.create('App\\Post', 3);

  //
});

cy.refreshDatabase()

Trigger a migrate:refresh on your test database. Often, you'll apply this in a beforeEach call to ensure that, before each new test in the file, your database is freshly migrated and cleaned up.

beforeEach(() => {
  cy.refreshDatabase();
});

test('it does something', () => {
  // php artisan migrate:fresh has been
  // called at this point.
});

cy.seed()

Run all database seeders, or a single class, in the current Cypress environment.

test('it seeds the db', () => {
  cy.seed('PlansTableSeeder');
});

Assuming that APP_ENV in your .env.cypress file is set to "acceptance," the call above would be equivalent to:

php artisan db:seed --class=PlansTableSeeder --env=acceptance

cy.artisan()

Trigger any Artisan command under the current environment for the Cypress test. Remember to proceed options with two dashes, as usual.

test('it can create posts through the command line', () => {
  cy.artisan('post:make', {
    '--title': 'My First Post',
  });

  cy.visit('/posts').contains('My First Post');
});

This call is equivalent to:

php artisan post:make --title="My First Post"

cy.php()

While not exactly in the spirit of acceptance testing, this command will allow you to trigger and evaluate arbitrary PHP.

test('it can evaluate PHP', () => {
    cy.php(`
        App\\Plan::first();
    `).then(plan => {
        expect(plan.name).to.equal('Monthly'); 
    });
});

Be thoughtful when you reach for this command, but it might prove useful in instances where it's vital that you verify the state of the application or database in response to a certain action. It could also be used for setting up the "world" for your test. That said, a targeted database seeder - using cy.seed() - will typically be the better approach.

Security

If you discover any security related issues, please email jeffrey@laracasts.com instead of using the issue tracker.

Credits

• Jeffrey Way

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.