dependencies

It’s normal to need to pass state between steps while writing a scenario. As an example, let’s say we’re writing a step that gets a user by their email address.

Feature: User Management

  Scenario: Get user by email
    Given I have a user with the email "test@example.com"
    When I get the user by email
    Then the user should be found
    And the user's email should be "test@example.com"

In this scenario, we need to be able to pass the user’s email address between the Given and When steps. We also need to pass the user found in the When step to the Then steps.

Dependencies allow your steps to declare what they need to function, and let Step Forge enforce those at both compile and runtime.

Defining dependencies

Dependencies are defined as part of your step’s builder function. It can be optionally chained off of the statement or parsers functions. Let’s define the When I get the user by email step shown above.

interface GivenState {
  email: `${string}@${string}.${string}`;
}

const getUserByEmailStep = whenBuilder<GivenState, WhenState>()
  .statement("I get the user by email")
  // The step will now fail at runtime if the email is not provided by a Given step
  .dependencies({ given: { email: required } })
  // given.email is now typed as `${string}@${string}.${string}` based on the GivenState type
  .step(({ given: { email } }) => {
    // ...
  });

Compile time dependency checking

If you are using the Step Forge VS Code extension, you will see compile time errors in your editor if you add a step to your Gherkin scenario that has an unmet dependency. It will also suggest steps that can fulfill the dependency through the Quick Fix action.