Getting Started

Since v3 WebdriverIO comes with its own test runner to help you getting started with integration testing as quickly as possible. All the fiddling around hooking up WebdriverIO with a test framework belongs to the past. The WebdriverIO runner does all the work for you and helps you to run your tests as efficient as possible.

First check out the Install section to make sure you have the runner properly installed. Type the following command in your terminal to test it:

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$ wdio --help
 
WebdriverIO CLI runner
 
Usage: wdio [options] [configFile]
config file defaults to wdio.conf.js
The [options] object will override values from the config file.
 
Options:
  --help, -h            prints WebdriverIO help menu
  --version, -v         prints WebdriverIO version
  --host                selenium server host address
  --port                selenium server port
  --user, -u            username if using a cloud service as Selenium backend
  --key, -k             corresponding access key to the user
  --updateJob           if true update job properties for Sauce Labs job (default: true)
  --logLevel, -l        Level of test output verbosity
  --coloredLogs, -c     if true enables colors for log output (default: true)
  --screenshotPath, -s  saves a screenshot to a given path if a command failes
  --baseUrl, -b         shorten url command calls by setting a base url
  --waitforTimeout, -w  Default timeout for all wait commands
  --framework, -f       defines the framework (Mocha, Jasmine or Cucumber) to run the specs (default: mocha)
  --reporter, -r        reporter to print out the results on stdout

Sweet! Now you need to define a configuration file where all information about your tests, capabilities and settings are set. Switch over to the Configuration File section to find out how that file should look like. With the wdio configuration helper it is super easy to generate your config file. Just run:

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$ wdio config

and it launches the helper utility. It will ask you questions depending on the answers you give. This way you can generate your config file in less than a minute.

Once you have your configuration file set up you can start your integration tests by calling:

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$ wdio wdio.conf.js

Your tests can access the selenium instance via the global variable browser.

Organizing tests

Since automation testing can be relatively time-intensive, it’s important to plan how to organize your tests. It is possible to organize your tests by creating multiple configuration files: each file can define a different list of “specs” directories.

Additionally, Mocha’s “grep” option is exposed to the --mochaOpts option, so you can use it to perform pattern matching on your test descriptions:

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wdio wdio.conf.js --mochaOpts.grep "search term here"