Kookaburra

Kookaburra is a framework for implementing the Window Driver pattern in order to keep acceptance tests maintainable.

Setup

Kookaburra itself abstracts some common patterns for implementing the Window Driver pattern for tests of Ruby web applications built on Rack. You will need to tell Kookaburra which classes contain the specific Domain Driver implementations for your application as well as which driver to use for running the tests (currently only tested with Capybara). The details of setting up your Domain Driver layer are discussed below, but in general you will need the following in a locations such as lib/my_application/kookaburra.rb (replace MyApplication with a module name suitable to your actual application:

module MyApplication
  module Kookaburra
    ::Kookaburra.adapter = Capybara

    # Note: the following assigned classes are defined under your
    # application's namespace, e.g. MyApplication::Kookaburra::APIDriver
    ::Kookaburra.api_driver = APIDriver
    ::Kookaburra.given_driver = GivenDriver
    ::Kookaburra.ui_driver = UIDriver

    ::Kookaburra.test_data_setup do
      provide_collection :accounts
      # See section on Test Data for more examples of what can go here.
    end
  end
end

RSpec

For RSpec integration tests, just add the following to spec/support/kookaburra_setup.rb:

require 'my_application/kookaburra'

RSpec.configure do |c|
  c.include(Kookaburra, :type => :request)
end

Cucumber

For Cucumber, add the following to features/support/kookaburra_setup.rb:

require 'my_application/kookaburra'

Kookaburra.adapter = Capybara
World(Kookaburra)

Before do
  # Ensure that there isn't state-leakage between scenarios
  kookaburra_reset!
end

This will cause the #api, #given and #ui methods will be available in your Cucumber step definitions.

Defining Your Testing DSL

Kookaburra attempts to extract some common patterns that make it easier to use the Window Driver pattern along with various Ruby testing frameworks, but you still need to define your own testing DSL. An acceptance testing stack using Kookaburra has the following four layers:

The Business Specification Language (Cucumber scenarios and step definitions)
The Domain Driver (Kookaburra::GivenDriver and Kookaburra::UIDriver)
The Window Driver (Kookaburra::UIDriver::UIComponent)
The Application Driver (Capybara and Rack::Test)

The Business Specification Language

The business specification language consists of the highest-level descriptions of a feature that are suitable for sharing with the non/less-technical stakeholders on a project.

Gherkin is the external DSL used by Cucumber for this purpose, and you might have the following scenario defined for an e-commerce application:

# purchase_items_in_cart.feature

Feature: Purchase Items in Cart

  Scenario: Using Existing Billing and Shipping Information

    Given I have an existing account
    And I have previously specified default payment options
    And I have previously specified default shipping options
    And I have an item in my shopping cart

    When I sign in to my account
    And I choose to check out

    Then I see my order summary
    And I see that my default payment options will be used
    And I see that my default shipping options will be used

Note that the scenario is focused on business concepts versus interface details, i.e. you "choose to check out" rather than "click on the checkout button". If for some reason your e-commerce system was going to be a terminal application rather than a web application, you would not need to change this scenario at all, because the actual business concepts described would not change.

The Domain Driver

The Domain Driver layer is where you build up an internal DSL that describes the business concepts of your application at a fairly high level. It consists of three top-level drivers: the APIDriver (available via #api) for interacting with your application's external API, the GivenDriver (available via #given) which really just wraps the APIDriver and is used to set up state for your tests, and the UIDriver (available via #given) for describing the tasks that a user can accomplish with the application.

Given the Cucumber scenario above, the step definitions call into the Domain Driver layer to interact with your application:

# step_definitions/various_steps.rb

Given "I have an existing account" do
  given.existing_account(:my_account)
end

Given "I have previously specified default payment options" do
  given.default_payment_options_specified_for(:my_account)
end

Given "I have previously specified default shipping options" do
  given.default_shipping_options_specified_for(:my_account)
end

Given "I have an item in my shopping cart" do
  given.an_item_in_my_shopping_cart(:my_account)
end

When "I sign in to my account" do
  ui.sign_in(:my_account)
end

When "I choose to check out" do
  ui.choose_to_check_out
end

Then "I see my order summary" do
  ui.order_summary.should be_visible
end

Then "I see that my default payment options will be used" do
  ui.order_summary.payment_options.should be_account_default_options
end

Then "I see that my default shipping options will be used" do
  ui.order_summary.shipping_options.should be_account_default_options
end

The step definitions contain neither explicitly shared state (instance variables) nor any logic branches; they are simply wrappers around calls into the Domain Driver layer. There are a couple of advantages to this approach. First, because step definitions are so simple, it isn't necessary to force Very Specific Wording on the business analyst/product owner who is writing the specs. For instance, if she writes "I see a summary of my order" in another scenario, it's not a big deal to have the following in your step definitions (as long as the author of the spec confirms that they really mean the same thing):

Then "I see my order summary" do
  ui.order_summary.should be_visible
end

Then "I see a summary of my order" do
  ui.order_summary.should be_visible
end

The step definitions are nothing more than a natural language reference to an action in the Domain Driver; there is no overwhelming maintenance cost to the slight duplication, and it opens up the capacity for more readable Gherkin specs. The fewer false road blocks you put between your product owner and a written specification, the easier it becomes to ensure her participation in this process.

The second advantage is that by pushing all of the complexity down into the Domain Driver, it's now trivial to reuse the exact same code in developer-centric integration tests. This ensures you have parity between the way the automated acceptance tests run and any additional testing that the development team needs to add in. You could write the same test using just RSpec as follows:

# spec/integration/purchase_items_in_cart_spec.rb

describe "Purchase Items in Cart" do
  example "Using Existing Billing and Shipping Information" do
    given.existing_account(:my_account)
    given.default_payment_options_specified_for(:my_account)
    given.default_shipping_options_specified_for(:my_account)
    given.an_item_in_my_shopping_cart(:my_account)

    ui.sign_in(:my_account)
    ui.choose_to_check_out

    ui.order_summary.should be_visible
    ui.order_summary.payment_options.should be_account_default_options
    ui.order_summary.shipping_options.should be_account_default_options
  end
end

Whether in Cucumber step definitions or developer integration tests, you will usually interact only with the GivenDriver and the UIDriver.

TestData

Kookaburra::TestData is the component via which the GivenDriver and the UIDriver share information. For instance, if you create a user account via the GivenDriver, you would store the login credentials for that account in the TestData instance, so the UIDriver knows what to use when you tell it to #sign_in. This is what allows the Cucumber step definitions to remain free from explicitly shared state.

The TestData class can be configured to contain both collections of test data as well as default data that can be used as a starting point for creating new resources in the application. To configure TestData, call Kookaburra.test_data_setup with a block (usually in your lib/my_application/kookaburra.rb file):

module MyApplication
  module Kookaburra
    # ...
    ::Kookaburra.test_data_setup do
      provide_collection :animals
      set_default :animal,
        :name => 'horse'
        :size => 'large',
        :number_of_legs => 4
    end
  end
end

Then, in any context where you have an instance of TestData (such as in GivenDriver or UIDriver), you can add/retrieve items to/from collections and access default data:

class MyApplication::Kookaburra::GivenDriver < Kookaburra::GivenDriver
  def existing_account(nickname)
    default_account_data = test_data.default(:account)
    # do something to create account in application
    # ...
    # make the details of the new account available to the rest of the test
    test_data.accounts[nickname] = account
  end
end

class MyApplication::Kookaburra::UIDriver < Kookaburra::UIDriver
  def sign_in(account_nickname)
    # pull stored account details from TestData
    account_info = test_data.accounts[account_nickname]

    # do something to log in using that account_info
  end
end

APIDriver

The Kookaburra::APIDriver is used to interact with an application's external web services API. You tell Kookaburra about your API by creating a subclass of Kookaburra::APIDriver for your application:

# lib/my_application/kookaburra/api_driver.rb

class MyApplication::Kookaburra::APIDriver < Kookaburra::APIDriver
  def create_account(account_data)
    post_as_json 'Account', 'api/v1/accounts', :account => account_data
    hash_from_response_json[:account]
  end
end

GivenDriver

The Kookaburra::GivenDriver is used to create a particular "preexisting" state within your application's data and ensure you have a handle to that data (when needed) prior to interacting with the UI. Like the APIDriver, you will create a subclass of Kookaburra::GivenDriver in which you will create part of the Domain Driver DSL for your application:

# lib/my_application/kookaburra/given_driver.rb

class MyApplication::Kookaburra::GivenDriver < Kookaburra::GivenDriver
  def existing_account(nickname)
    # grab the default account details and add a unique username and
    # password
    account_data = test_data.default(:account)
    account_data[:username] = "test-user-#{`uuidgen`.strip}"
    account_data[:password] = account_data[:username] + "-password"

    # use the API to create the account in the application
    account_details = api.create_account(account_data)

    # merge in the password (since API doesn't return it) and store details
    # in the TestData instance
    account_details.merge(:password => account_data[:password])
    test_data.accounts[nickname] = account_details
  end
end

UIDriver

Kookaburra::UIDriver provides the necessary tools for driving your application's user interface using the Window Driver pattern. You will subclass Kookaburra::UIDriver for your application and implement your testing DSL within your subclass:

# lib/my_application/kookaburra/ui_driver.rb

class MyApplication::Kookaburra::UIDriver < Kookaburra::UIDriver
  # makes an instance of MyApplication::Kookaburra::UIDriver::SignInScreen
  # available via the instance method #sign_in_screen
  ui_component :sign_in_screen

  def sign_in(account_nickname)
    account = test_data.accounts[account_nickname]
    navigate_to :sign_in_screen
    sign_in_screen.submit_login(account[:username], account[:password])
  end
end

The Window Driver Layer

While your GivenDriver and UIDriver provide a DSL that represents actions your users can perform in your application, the Window Driver layer describes the individual user interface components that the user interacts with to perform these tasks. By describing each interface component using an OOP approach, it is much easier to maintain your acceptance/integration tests, because the implementation details of each component are captured in a single place. If/when that implementation changes, you can---for example---fix every single test that needs to log a user into the system just by updating the SignInScreen class.

You describe the various user interface components by sub-classing Kookaburra::UIDriver::UIComponent:

# lib/my_application/ui_driver/sign_in_screen.rb

class MyApplication::Kookaburra::UIDriver::SignInScreen < Kookaburra::UIDriver::UIComponent
  component_locator '#new_user_session'
  component_path '/session/new'

  def username
    in_component { browser.find('#session_username').value }
  end

  def username=(new_value)
    fill_in('#session_username', :with => new_value)
  end

  def password
    in_component { browser.find('#session_password').value }
  end

  def password=(new_value)
    fill_in('#session_password', :with => new_value)
  end

  def submit!
    click_on('Sign In')
    no_500_error!
  end

  def submit_login(username, password)
    self.username = username
    self.password = password
    submit!
  end
end

Contributing to kookaburra

Check out the latest master to make sure the feature hasn't been implemented or the bug hasn't been fixed yet
Check out the issue tracker to make sure someone already hasn't requested it and/or contributed it
Fork the project
Start a feature/bugfix branch
Commit and push until you are happy with your contribution
Make sure to add tests for it. This is important so I don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
Please try not to mess with the Rakefile, version, or history. If you want to have your own version, or is otherwise necessary, that is fine, but please isolate to its own commit so I can cherry-pick around it.