September 2019 Summaries

Cypress recently announced the alpha release of its new feature supporting the testing of external Electron.js applications, although it has since ceased publishing the necessary binaries for such testing. The initiative aims to provide users with the opportunity to experiment and offer feedback on the testing capabilities of Electron apps using Cypress. The work is centered on a specific branch, offering features like a custom browser list and browser control via a remote debugger protocol. Users interested in testing their Electron applications can access the pre-release Test Runner version and follow installation instructions, utilizing the Cypress Electron plugin to structure their applications accordingly. The Test Runner opens a child window of the application, allowing Cypress test commands to interact with it. The ongoing development of this feature relies on user feedback, with the goal of refining the plugin's implementation and user experience. The project is tracked under Cypress issue #4964, and users are encouraged to contribute examples of applications to enhance the testing process.

Cypress is hosting a live webcast on September 23rd to demonstrate the integration of their end-to-end testing framework with various Continuous Integration (CI) providers, such as TeamCity, Travis, and Circle. The event, led by Justin James and Gleb Bahmutov, aims to address common challenges faced by Cypress users in setting up these services and provide insights on configuring tests across different environments like development, staging, and production. Participants will gain knowledge on the differences between "cypress open" and "cypress run," setting up Cypress on CI, running tests inside a Docker image, and more, with the opportunity for live Q&A. A recording will be available for those who register but cannot attend the live session.

In a recent webcast, Amir Rustamzadeh from Cypress and Dustin Schau from Gatsby discussed how Gatsby uses Cypress end-to-end (E2E) testing to efficiently handle more open-source contributions. The presentation highlighted Gatsby's choice of Cypress for testing, the implementation of E2E tests to improve pull-request acceptance speed, and the integration of Cypress tests for Gatsby's React components. Additionally, they demonstrated test execution in CircleCI and the use of the Cypress Dashboard with GitHub Integration to enhance continuous integration workflows. The webcast encouraged audience interaction through live questions and polls, and attendees were promised a surprise for completing a post-webcast survey. Viewers were invited to access presentation slides and example code, with a promise of future webcasts to follow.

Cypress has been recognized as one of the "20 Rising Stars" in the Forbes 2019 Cloud 100 list, signifying its status as a promising and high-growth private cloud company. This accolade, awarded by Forbes in collaboration with Bessemer Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures, highlights young companies that have raised up to $25 million and are on the trajectory to join the Cloud 100 rankings. The Forbes Cloud 100 list, now in its fourth year, identifies leading emerging businesses in the cloud sector, a field marked by rapid development across various industries such as cybersecurity, marketing, data analytics, and storage. The recognition underscores Cypress's achievements and prospects, made possible by its dedicated team, loyal customers, and supportive open-source developers.

The blog post by Gleb Bahmutov provides a comprehensive guide on implementing code coverage for React applications created using Create React App (CRA) version 3, without the need to eject the default configuration. It introduces the @cypress/instrument-cra module, which simplifies the process of instrumenting the application to generate code coverage reports after running end-to-end tests with Cypress. The post includes a practical example using a small single-page application (SPA), demonstrating how to add code instrumentation, test writing, and coverage reporting. It explains the setup process for Cypress code coverage, including installing necessary plugins, configuring scripts, and handling network stubbing for non-existent APIs. Additionally, the post covers writing and running both end-to-end and unit tests to improve code coverage, ultimately achieving a coverage report of 96%. The guide also addresses challenges such as dynamic data handling and unused code detection, offering insights into efficiently managing code coverage in React applications.

Stefano Magni, a front-end developer at Conio, discusses the concept of "Monitoring Tests" in UI testing, emphasizing their utility in maintaining website performance and functionality. While working on Conio's business site, Magni implemented small end-to-end (E2E) tests using Cypress to monitor crucial technical details like Brotli compression and cache management, which were vital for ensuring optimal user experience. These tests allowed for quick feedback, crucial due to frequent changes in the website's AWS/S3 configuration, and were separate from standard E2E tests to avoid slowing down the test suite. Magni highlights the importance of monitoring straightforward elements like robots.txt and sitemap.xml files, ensuring staging sites are not indexed and static assets are cached correctly. Unlike user-oriented E2E tests, monitoring tests focus on technical consistency and are run on both staging and production environments, offering a fast and efficient way to catch errors without disrupting analytics or pipeline flow.