Playwright E2E testing
How to run tests
All the tests reside in tests/playwright
folder.
Make sure to install the dependencies (in the playwright folder):
pnpm --filter=playwright install
pnpm exec playwright install --with-deps chromium
Run Test Server
Start the backend test server (in packages/nocodb
folder):
pnpm run watch:run:playwright
Start the frontend test server (in packages/nc-gui
folder):
NUXT_PAGE_TRANSITION_DISABLE=true pnpm run dev
Running all tests
For selecting db type, rename .env.example
to .env
and set E2E_DEV_DB_TYPE
to sqlite
(default), mysql
or pg
.
headless mode(without opening browser):
pnpm run test
with browser:
pnpm run test:debug
For setting up mysql(sakila):
docker-compose -f ./tests/playwright/scripts/docker-compose-mysql-playwright.yml up -d
For setting up postgres(sakila):
docker-compose -f ./tests/playwright/scripts/docker-compose-playwright-pg.yml
Running individual tests
Add .only
to the test you want to run:
test.only('should login', async ({ page }) => {
// ...
})
pnpm run test
Concepts
Independent tests
- All tests are independent of each other.
- Each test starts with a fresh project with a fresh sakila database(option to not use sakila db is also there).
- Each test creates a new user(email as
user@nocodb.com
) and logs in with that user to the dashboard.
Caveats:
- Some stuffs are shared i.e, users, plugins etc. So be catious while writing tests touching that. A fix for this is in the works.
- In test, we prefix email and project with the test id, which will be deleted after the test is done.
What to test
- UI verification. This includes verifying the state of the UI element, i.e if the element is visible, if the element has a particular text etc.
- Test should verify all user flow. A test has a default timeout of 60 seconds. If a test is taking more than 60 seconds, it is a sign that the test should be broken down into smaller tests.
- Test should also verify all the side effects the feature(i.e. On adding a new field type, should verify field deletion as well) will have, and also error cases.
- Test name should be descriptive. It should be easy to understand what the test is doing by just reading the test name.
Playwright
- Playwright is a nodejs library for automating chromium, firefox and webkit.
- For each test, a new browser context is created. This means that each test runs in a new incognito window.
- For assertion always use
expect
from@playwright/test
library. This library provides a lot of useful assertions, which also has retry logic built in.
Page Objects
- Page objects are used to abstract over the components/page. This makes the tests more readable and maintainable.
- All page objects are in
tests/playwright/pages
folder. - All the test related code should be in page objects.
- Methods should be as thin as possible and its better to have multiple methods than one big method, which improves reusability.
The methods of a page object can be classified into 2 categories:
- Actions: Performs an UI actions like click, type, select etc. Is also responsible for waiting for the element to be ready and the action to be performed. This included waiting for API calls to complete.
- Assertions: Asserts the state of the UI element, i.e if the element is visible, if the element has a particular text etc. Use
expect
from@playwright/test
and if not useexpect.poll
to wait for the assertion to pass.
Writing a test
Let's write a test for testing filter functionality.
For simplicity, we will have DashboardPage
implemented, which will have all the methods related to dashboard page and also its child components like Grid, etc.
Create a test suite
Create a new file filter.spec.ts
in tests/playwright/tests
folder and use setup
method to create a new project and user.
import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';
import setup, { NcContext } from '../setup';
test.describe('Filter', () => {
let context: NcContext;
test.beforeEach(async ({ page }) => {
context = await setup({ page });
})
test('should filter', async ({ page }) => {
// ...
});
});
Create a page object
Since filter is UI wise scoped to a Toolbar
, we will add filter page object to ToolbarPage
page object.
export class ToolbarPage extends BasePage {
readonly parent: GridPage | GalleryPage | FormPage | KanbanPage;
readonly filter: ToolbarFilterPage;
constructor(parent: GridPage | GalleryPage | FormPage | KanbanPage) {
super(parent.rootPage);
this.parent = parent;
this.filter = new ToolbarFilterPage(this);
}
}
We will create ToolbarFilterPage
page object, which will have all the methods related to filter.
export class ToolbarFilterPage extends BasePage {
readonly toolbar: ToolbarPage;
constructor(toolbar: ToolbarPage) {
super(toolbar.rootPage);
this.toolbar = toolbar;
}
}
Here BasePage
is an abstract class, which used to enforce structure for all page objects. Thus all page object should inherit BasePage
.
- Helper methods like
waitForResponse
andgetClipboardText
(this can be access on any page object, withthis.waitForResponse
) - Provides structure for page objects, enforces all Page objects to have
rootPage
property, which is the page object created in the test setup. - Enforces all pages to have a
get
method which will return the locator of the main container of that page, hence we can have focused dom selection, i.e.
// This will only select the button inside the container of the concerned page
await this.get().querySelector('button').count();
Writing an action method
This a method which will reset/clear all the filters. Since this is an action method, it will also wait for the delete
filter API to return. Ignoring this API call will cause flakiness in the test, down the line.
async resetFilter() {
await this.waitForResponse({
uiAction: async () => await this.get().locator('.nc-filter-item-remove-btn').click(),
httpMethodsToMatch: ['DELETE'],
requestUrlPathToMatch: '/api/v1/db/meta/filters/',
});
}
Writing an assertion/verification method
Here we use expect
from @playwright/test
library, which has retry logic built in.
import { expect } from '@playwright/test';
async verifyFilter({ title }: { title: string }) {
await expect(
this.get().locator(`[data-testid="nc-fields-menu-${title}"]`).locator('input[type="checkbox"]')
).toBeChecked();
}
Tips to avoid flakiness
- If an UI action, causes an API call or the UI state change, then wait for that API call to complete or the UI state to change.
- What to wait out can be situation specific, but in general, is best to wait for the final state to be reached, i.e. in the case of creating filter, while it seems like waiting for the filter API to complete is enough, but after its return the table records are reloaded and the UI state changes, so its better to wait for the table records to be reloaded.
Accessing playwright report in the CI
- Open
Summary
tab in the CI workflow in github actions. - Scroll down to
Artifacts
section. - Access reports which suffixed with the db type and shard number(corresponding to the CI workerflow name). i.e
playwright-report-mysql-2
is forplaywright-mysql-2
workflow. - Download it and run
pnpm install -D @playwright/test && npx playwright show-report ./
inside the downloaded folder.