What are the best practices for using Cucumber in behavior-driven development?

1 Use clear and consistent language

Cucumber enables communication and collaboration between developers, testers, business analysts, and other stakeholders by using a common language to describe the system behavior. To avoid ambiguity, confusion, and duplication, you should use clear and consistent language in your Gherkin scenarios. The present tense and active voice should be used to describe the actions and outcomes of the system. Domain-specific terms that are familiar and meaningful to the audience should be employed, while technical jargon, implementation details, and UI elements that are not relevant to the behavior should be avoided. Furthermore, consistent names and formats for features, scenarios, steps, and parameters should be used. Additionally, tables, lists, and examples can help organize and simplify data.

2 Follow the STAR pattern

The STAR pattern is a simple and effective way to structure Gherkin scenarios. It stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result, and it helps you to focus on the essential aspects of the behavior. When writing scenarios, you should begin by setting up the context and preconditions with the Background or Given steps. Then, use the When step to specify the main action or event that triggers the behavior. You can add any additional actions or events that are part of the behavior with And or But steps. Finally, use the Then step to verify the expected outcome or effect of the behavior.

3 Keep your scenarios independent and isolated

One of the key principles of BDD is that your scenarios should be independent and isolated from each other, meaning each scenario should test one specific behavior without depending on the state or outcome of any other scenario. To ensure this, you should avoid sharing data or state between scenarios unless it is part of the background or given steps. Additionally, tags, hooks, or profiles can be used to control the execution and configuration of your scenarios. Furthermore, scenario outlines or data tables can be used to parameterize your scenarios and avoid duplication. Finally, dependency injection or helper methods can be used to manage your test objects and resources.

4 Write reusable and maintainable step definitions

Step definitions are the code snippets that link Gherkin steps to the actual actions and assertions of a test framework. To ensure quality and efficiency, it's important to write reusable and maintainable step definitions. When writing these step definitions, use expressive and descriptive names that match the language of your Gherkin steps. Regular expressions or Cucumber expressions can be used to capture the parameters of your steps, while abstraction and encapsulation can be used to hide implementation details and complexity. Additionally, assertions and error handling should be used to verify and report the results of your steps, while hooks or annotations can perform any setup or teardown actions before or after scenarios.

5 Refactor and review your tests regularly

As your system evolves and grows, so will your tests. To ensure that your tests remain relevant, reliable, and readable, you should refactor and review them regularly. Refactoring and reviewing can help you remove any obsolete or redundant tests, update tests that are affected by changes in the system behavior or requirements, improve tests that are unclear or complex, identify any gaps or issues in your test coverage or quality, and incorporate feedback from stakeholders or peers.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?