SpecFlow.NetCore

The problem

As at the time of writing (September 2016), the SpecFlow for Visual Studio 2015 extension does not play well with .NET Core projects.

The solution

Wait for the VS extension to support .NET Core projects. In the meantime, I present...

The (hopefully temporary) solution

Update your project:

1. Include SpecFlow and your test framework of choice:

   • xUnit:

     <ItemGroup>
       <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk" Version="15.3.0" />
       <PackageReference Include="SpecFlow" Version="2.1.0" />
       <PackageReference Include="xunit.runner.visualstudio" Version="2.2.0" />
       <PackageReference Include="xunit" Version="2.2.0" />
     </ItemGroup>

   • NUnit (Experimental):

     <ItemGroup>
       <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk" Version="15.3.0" />
       <PackageReference Include="SpecFlow" Version="2.1.0" />
       <PackageReference Include="NUnit" Version="3.8.1" />
       <PackageReference Include="dotnet-test-nunit" Version="3.4.0-beta-2" />
     </ItemGroup>

   • MsTest (Experimental):

     <ItemGroup>
       <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk" Version="15.3.0" />
       <PackageReference Include="SpecFlow" Version="2.1.0" />
       <PackageReference Include="MSTest.TestAdapter" Version="1.1.18" />
       <PackageReference Include="MSTest.TestFramework" Version="1.1.18" />
     </ItemGroup>

2. Include SpecFlow.NetCore:

   <ItemGroup>
     <DotNetCliToolReference Include="SpecFlow.NetCore" Version="1.0.0" />
   </ItemGroup>

3. Add a precompile script:

   <Target Name="PrecompileScript" BeforeTargets="BeforeBuild">
     <Exec Command="dotnet SpecFlow.NetCore" />
   </Target>

4. Build for your tests to be discovered.

Notes

• There is a bug with the .NET Core CLI requiring a second build for newly added files to be discovered.
• Support for the .NET Core switch from project.json to MSBuild .csproj was added by the community in February 2017 (thanks @richardjharding!) but has not yet been officially tested.

Samples

If you build the samples solution, you should see .feature.cs files and an app.config being generated for each test framework.

Supported frameworks

.NET Core

• netcoreapp2.0 (see #39)
• net46
• net461

SpecFlow itself, and by extension this project, is currently limited to running on full .NET Framework.

Test frameworks

• xUnit
• NUnit - Experimental support added by the community.
• MsTest - Experimental support added by the community.

Visual Studio

Test Explorer

Background

• SpecFlow Issue 471: Auto generation of feature.cs fails when using MSBuild that comes with VS2015
• SpecFlow Issue 457: SpecFlow "Generate Step Definition" context menu missing in VS2015
• SpecFlow Google Group discussing VS2015 & DNX