Testing Thoughts

End-2-End or CUJ (Critical User Journey) Tests

• purpose: information signalling/monitoring
• should not be able to block a merge or deploy programatically by failing
• should be in its own repo should be in same repo
  • for the time being, copy things if reusing for other service rather than centralize, e.g. Job Manager
  • clear it’s Terra test, not Terra UI test
  • Saturn team should own it, QA should feel ownership as well
  • npm install -D github:DataBiosphere/terra-test#commit-ish
    • npm ln ../terra-test for local dev
  • separately delivered
• should go and click things on external sites, overriding return URL's when necessary (12/5/19)

General - End-2-End or Unit Tests

• data-test-id not ideal
  • moves further from realistic testing
    • users aren’t using that prop, they’re reading text
  • gets littered around the codebase, rarely cleaned up
• alternative: use content when possible
  • buttons based on text
  • coherent strategy for identifying icons
    • name available in the dom to use as selector
  • where that’s insufficient, figure out ways to improve app so it is sufficient
    • intersection with accessibility
    • if it’s not findable by a test, it’s not findable by a screen reader
      • aria- features, etc.
      • e.g. list of cards and want to open the menu for a specific one:
        • desired description to test: within card that contains text “x”, click the menu icon (css selectors + jest selectors)
    • concerns:
      • if you change text the test will break
        • it should, this is when the test should be updated
        • not expected to happen often
        • false positives from this are more useful than false negatives from using data- prop abstraction
      • waiting
        • avoid arbitrary timeouts whenever possible, wait for element to appear or disappear
        • when not possible, fix the app so it is.