What is Cypress Automation Tool?

DILSHA K K | November 14, 2022

Cypress is a long-term, widely available, open-source, free test automation tool. This tool is mainly used for front-end test automation. Cypress can help you Configure your tests, Run your tests and Identify errors. Selenium and Cypress are often compared in terms of properties. However, Cypress differs in architecture and functionality. It also solves some problems with selenium. Cypress is based on Javascript and runs tests in your browser. This will help you develop tests that include:

Unit Testing
End-to-End Testing
Integration Testing

Features of Cypress Automation Tool

Multiple features make Cypress a unique tool, some key features are listed below,

Supports test-driven development.
Provides a dashboard service.
Efficient debugging with developer tools with stack trace and error generation.
Provide screenshots of failed tests.
There is no need to add a wait time to suspend execution. By default, a wait is applied before executing the next step or assertion.
You can monitor and control the properties of server responses, functions, and timers that are essential for unit testing.
Inspection and management of network traffic.
Enable multi-browser support.
A built-in feature is available to record a video of the run.
Integration with continuous integration tools.
Page responsiveness with viewport resizing
By default, all changes applied to tests are reloaded.
An easy-to-use application programming interface (API) is available.
A test runner is available that can run tests directly from the user interface (UI).

Disadvantages of Cypress Automation Tool

There are some disadvantages to using Cypress and they are listed below,

Based only on JavaScript.
As a relatively new tool, community support is not extensive
It cannot perform mobile testing.
Unable to access Shadow Document Object Model (DOM).
Tabs or child windows are managed by workarounds.

Basics of Cypress:

1. Introduction and Architecture:

Cypress is a next-generation front-end test tool designed for modern web applications. Most testing tools (such as Selenium) work by running outside the browser and executing remote commands over the network. However, the Cypress engine runs directly in your browser. Cypress can eavesdrop and change browser behavior at runtime by manipulating the DOM and modifying network requests and responses on the fly.

2. Node Installation and Setup:

Node.js is a server-side runtime environment built on top of Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. It's open source, completely free, and used by millions of developers worldwide. Execution environment. In addition, it contains everything you need to run programs written in JavaScript. Before you start building Node.js applications, you need to install the Node js framework

3. Install vs Code:

Visual Studio Code has built-in support for JavaScript, TypeScript, and Node.js, as well as other languages (C++, C#, Go, Java, Python, PHP, etc.) and runtimes (Unity and .Net).

4. Cypress Installation and Setup Project:

Cypress can be downloaded directly from the Cypress CDN. A direct download will always download the latest version of the platform. A ZIP file is downloaded that the user can unzip. And you can download it with npm. It also explains how to set up a basic project using packages. JSON and cypress are installed together.

5. Cypress Test:

The basis of Cypress is Mocha and Chai (one of the famous assertion libraries in JavaScript), and it adheres to the same style of writing test cases as will be used by any other JavaScript-based framework. You will learn how to manage and write test cases in a Cypress Workshop project using the standard Cypress-provided folder structure and work with Cypress for basic test cases.

6. Test Runner:

Cypress has its test runner that allows you to see the commands being executed. Additionally, it shows the real-time execution of the application under test. Finish developing your first automated test case using Cypress and run this test case using Cypress Test Runner. You will also learn about Test Runner's various components and how to work with them from the terminal.

7. Cypress Locator:

Locators are the backbone of automation frameworks for web-based applications. Additionally, a locator is an identifier that tells automation tools that her GUI element (textbox, button, checkbox, etc.) exists. Following the same concept, Cypress also uses locators to identify her UI elements in the application under test.

8. Get and Find Command:

Cypress provides two main methods get() and find() for finding web elements based on locators. The outcomes of each strategy are nearly the same. But each has its meaning and place of implementation. Next, this article describes the where-get() and find() methods that you can use while automating your web tests with Cypress.

9. Cypress Asynchronous Nature:

Asynchronous programming is a parallel programming technique in which units of work are executed separately from the main application thread. It also notifies the calling thread of completion, failure, or progress. These types of programs are "non-blocking". If you're doing something synchronously, wait until it completes before moving on to another task. On the other hand, doing something asynchronously allows you to move on to another task before it finishes

10. Handle Non-Cypress Async Promises:

We know that Cypress handles the asynchronous behavior of commands internally while providing seamless, continuous, and consistent execution of test cases. Still, there may be times when you need to explicitly handle asynchronous promises or commands, such as combining Cypress commands with third-party libraries or JavaScript commands. We'll see how Cypress helps us to explicitly manage these non-Cypress Async Promises.

11. Cypress Assertions:

Assertions are verification steps that determine whether a specified step in an automated test case succeeded. Assertions, in effect, verify the desired state of the element, object, or application under test. For example, assertions can be used to validate scenarios. Whether the element is visible or has a particular attribute, CSS class, or status. It is always recommended to include assertion steps in all automated test cases. Otherwise, it is impossible to verify whether the application has reached the expected state.

Cypress is a free open-source framework widely recognized as the most important tool of the future. QA Automation for Cypress includes features not found in other testing tools, such as real-time reloading, auto-scrolling, ultra-fast implementations, and time travel. All these features make Cypress a viable end-to-end testing framework for developers and quality assurance professionals. This makes Cypress a modern testing tool that is universally applicable and easy to use for everyone.

At Sanesqaure Technologies, we provide Cypress integration with continuous end-to-end testing, support, and speedy web testing. When you integrate Cypress with us, you can access all the permutations of browsers you need to test against in the cloud and perform parallel testing and bursts more quickly. Get in touch with us, if you like to integrate with Cypress.

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