Best practices
Factories and gem helpers
- Use factories instead of clicking around your application to set the state
- Take advantage of helpers, i.e. devise login_as to login users
- Clean the database using database_cleaner
Abstraction
- Describe a feature, not edge cases
- Only BDD the happy path, there are controller/model/view tests for a reason
Better feature files
- Think twice when writing the "As a ... I want to .. so I can ..."
- Write down any explanation you need as plain text between the header and the scenarios (see example)
- Start with expectations instead of setting state or user actions
- Group feature files by application domain, not actor
Stop once you've an expectation
- No more user actions (click_link and friends) after a Then
- Only assert on Then steps
- Split complicated workflows in different scenarios (i.e. registration + confirmation + profile completion)
Anti-patterns
Default files
- Delete web_steps.rb if you haven't already
- paths.rb is the devil (same goes for selectors.rb)
Cucumber features you should not use
- Scenario Outlines
- Step params (Given a user named "John Doe")
- Tables
BDD != integration
- Don't try to emulate BDD with integration tests
- Steak and family aren't BDD frameworks, FYI
Special mentions
- APIs a.k.a testing JSON
- Pickle