Skip to content
ulamsulamsulams docs

0010. Jest for unit tests, Playwright (replacing Cypress) for end-to-end tests against a real API

Generated from admin/docs/adr/0010-testing-jest-unit-and-playwright-e2e.md

  • Status: Accepted (retroactive)
  • Date: 2022-08-11

Context and Problem Statement

Section titled “Context and Problem Statement”

The panel needed automated checks in CI. A month after the repository was created both unit and e2e suites were set up; the e2e approach was later replaced.

Considered Options

Section titled “Considered Options”
  • Cypress e2e against umi’s mock server (start-server-and-test start:mock … cypress-run), March 2021.
  • Cypress e2e against a dockerised escolalms/api (PR #528, August 2022).
  • Playwright e2e against the dockerised API (chosen one week later, PR #555).

Decision Outcome

Section titled “Decision Outcome”
  • Unit/component tests: Jest with Babel transforms in config/jest/* (no ts-jest), Enzyme / Testing Library, run by .github/workflows/unit.yml.
  • E2E: @playwright/test with playwright.config.ts; specs in src/e2e/*.e2e.spec.ts (login, logout, new course, user, voucher, consultation, …). .github/workflows/e2e-playwright.js.yml starts Postgres, Redis, MailHog and the escolalms/api:latest image as services, runs migrations/seeders and passport:client inside the API container, builds the admin against http://localhost and runs the specs. Cypress, its config and eslint-plugin-cypress were removed in the same PR that added Playwright.

Inferred: Playwright was preferred over Cypress for multi-browser support and speed; the PR does not say.

Consequences

Section titled “Consequences”
  • Good: e2e tests exercise the real API contract, which matters because types are hand-written (0004).
  • Bad: e2e depends on the latest published API image, so an API release can break admin CI with no admin change.
  • Bad: the suite is small (about ten specs) and the 2024 migration PR notes “missing e2e tests”.

Evidence

Section titled “Evidence”
  • c66b6f53, 2bdc7f6f … d885a640 2021-03-22 “cypress e2e …” — admin/.github/workflows/e2e.js.yml.
  • 876e2e54 2021-03-25 “jest ts unit test #5 (#7)” — admin/config/jest/*, admin/.github/workflows/unit.yml.
  • b243d5d6 2022-08-04 “cypress tests (#528)” — e2e workflow runs escolalms/api image.
  • 80b353c5 2022-08-11 “playwright init (#555)” — admin/playwright.config.ts, admin/tests/run-tests.js, admin/src/e2e/baseLayout.e2e.spec.ts, admin/package.json (−cypress, +@playwright/test ^1.25.0), workflow renamed to admin/.github/workflows/e2e-playwright.js.yml.
  • 045d972a 2022-08-22 “login test (#562)”, b7bd0e23 2022-08-24 “new course tests added (#567)”.