@applitools/eyes-cypress

Applitools Eyes SDK for Cypress.

Usage no npm install needed!

<script type="module">
  import applitoolsEyesCypress from 'https://cdn.skypack.dev/@applitools/eyes-cypress';
</script>

README

Eyes-Cypress

Applitools Eyes SDK for Cypress.

Installation

Install npm package

Install Eyes-Cypress as a local dev dependency in your tested project:

npm i -D @applitools/eyes-cypress

Configure plugin and commands

Automatic configuration

Run the following command in your terminal:

npx eyes-setup

The above command will add the necessary imports to your cypress pluginsFile and supportFile (and create the TypeScript definitions file), as described in the manual configuration below.

Manual configuration

1. Configure Eyes-Cypress plugin

Eyes-Cypress acts as a Cypress plugin, so it should be configured as such. Unfortunately there's no easy way to do this automatically, so you need to manually add the following code to your pluginsFile:

Important: add this code after the definition of module.exports:

require('@applitools/eyes-cypress')(module)

Normally, this is cypress/plugins/index.js. You can read more about it in Cypress' docs here.

2. Configure custom commands

Eyes-Cypress exposes new commands to your tests. This means that more methods will be available on the cy object. To enable this, it's required to configure these custom commands. As with the plugin, there's no automatic way to configure this in cypress, so you need to manually add the following code to your supportFile:

import '@applitools/eyes-cypress/commands'

Normally, this is cypress/support/index.js. You can read more about it in Cypress' docs here.

3. (Optional) TypeScript configuration

Eyes-Cypress ships with official type declarations for TypeScript. This allows you to add eyes commands to your TypeScript tests.

Add this file to your project with either:

  1. Adding the path to your tsconfig file:
    {
      "files": ["./node_modules/@applitools/eyes-cypress/eyes-index.d.ts"],
      ...
    }
    
  2. Copying the file to to your cypress/support/ dir:
    cp node_modules/@applitools/eyes-cypress/eyes-index.d.ts ./cypress/support/    
    

Applitools API key

In order to authenticate via the Applitools server, you need to supply the Eyes-Cypress SDK with the API key you got from Applitools. Read more about how to obtain the API key here.

To do so, set the environment variable APPLITOOLS_API_KEY to the API key before running your tests. For example, on Linux/Mac:

export APPLITOOLS_API_KEY=<your_key>
npx cypress open

And on Windows:

set APPLITOOLS_API_KEY=<your_key>
npx cypress open

It's also possible to specify the API key in the applitools.config.js file. The property name is apiKey. For example:

module.exports = {
  apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY',
  // ...
}

See the Advanced configuration section below for more information on using the config file.

Eyes server URL (optional)

In case the Eyes server is deployed at a location different than https://eyes.applitools.com, then it should be configured similarly to the Applitools API key above. To obtain the server url of your Applitools Eyes dashboard just copy the origin of its url (for example https://MY_COMPANYY.applitools.com).

export APPLITOOLS_SERVER_URL=<YOUR_SERVER_URL>

It's also possible to specify the server URL in the applitools.config.js file. The property name is serverUrl. For example:

module.exports = {
  serverUrl: 'YOUR_SERVER_URL',
  // ...
}

Usage

After completing the configuration (either automatic or manual) and defining the API key, you will be able to use commands from Eyes-Cypress in your cypress tests to take screenshots and use Applitools Eyes to manage them:

Example

describe('Hello world', () => {
  it('works', () => {
    cy.visit('https://applitools.com/helloworld');
    cy.eyesOpen({
      appName: 'Hello World!',
      testName: 'My first JavaScript test!',
      browser: { width: 800, height: 600 },
    });
    cy.eyesCheckWindow('Main Page');
    cy.get('button').click();
    cy.eyesCheckWindow('Click!');
    cy.eyesClose();
  });
});

Best practice for using the SDK

Every call to cy.eyesOpen and cy.eyesClose defines a test in Applitools Eyes, and all the calls to cy.eyesCheckWindow between them are called "steps". In order to get a test structure in Applitools that corresponds to the test structure in Cypress, it's best to open/close tests in every it call. This can be done via the beforeEach and afterEach functions that Cypress provides (via the mocha test runner).

After adjusting the example above, this becomes:

describe('Hello world', () => {
  beforeEach(() => {
    cy.eyesOpen({
      appName: 'Hello World!',
      browser: { width: 800, height: 600 },
    });
  });

  afterEach(() => {
    cy.eyesClose();
  });

  it('My first JavaScript test!', () => {
    cy.visit('https://applitools.com/helloworld');
    cy.eyesCheckWindow('Main Page');
    cy.get('button').click();
    cy.eyesCheckWindow('Click!');
  });
});

Applitools will take screenshots and perform the visual comparisons in the background. Performance of the tests will not be affected during the test run, but there will be a small phase at the end of the test run that waits for visual tests to end.

Note: In Cypress interactive mode (cypress open) there is a bug that exceptions in root level after statements don't appear in the UI. They still appear in the browser's console, and considered failures in cypress run. See this issue for more information and tracking.


Index




Commands

In addition to the built-in commands provided by Cypress, like cy.visit and cy.get, Eyes-Cypress defines new custom commands, which enable the visual testing with Applitools Eyes. These commands are:

Open

Create an Applitools test. This will start a session with the Applitools server.

cy.eyesOpen({
  appName: '',
  testName: ''
});

It's possible to pass a config object to eyesOpen with all the possible configuration properties. Read the Advanced configuration section for a detailed description.

Check window

Generate a screenshot of the current page and add it to the Applitools Test.

cy.eyesCheckWindow('Login screen')

OR

cy.eyesCheckWindow({ tag: 'Login screen', target: 'your target' })
Arguments to cy.eyesCheckWindow
tag

(optional): A logical name for this check.

target

(optional): Possible values are:
1. window This is the default value. If set then the captured image is of the entire page or the viewport, use fully for specifying what window mode to use.
2. region If set then the captured image is of the parts of the page, use this parameter with region or selector for specifying the areas to captured.

fully

(optional) In case target is window, if fully is true (default) then the snapshot is of the entire page, if fully is false then snapshot is of the viewport.

  // Capture viewport only
  cy.eyesCheckWindow({
    target: 'window',
    fully: false,
  });
selector

(optional): In case target is region, this should be the actual css or xpath selector to an element, and the screenshot would be the content of that element. For example:

// Using a css selector
cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  target: 'region',
  selector: {
    type: 'css',
    selector: '.my-element' // or '//button'
  }
});

// Using an xpath selector
cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  target: 'region',
  selector: {
    type: 'xpath',
    selector: '//button[1]'
  }
});

// The shorthand string version defaults to css selectors
cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  target: 'region',
  selector: '.my-element'
});
region

(optional): In case target is region, this should be an object describing the region's coordinates for capturing the image. For example:

cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  target: 'region',
  region: {top: 100, left: 0, width: 1000, height: 200}
});
ignore

(optional): A single or an array of regions to ignore when checking for visual differences. For example:

cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  ignore: [
    {top: 100, left: 0, width: 1000, height: 100},
    {selector: '.some-div-to-ignore'}
  ]
});
floating

(optional): A single or an array of floating regions to ignore when checking for visual differences. More information about floating regions can be found in Applitools docs here. For example:

cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  floating: [
    {top: 100, left: 0, width: 1000, height: 100, maxUpOffset: 20, maxDownOffset: 20, maxLeftOffset: 20, maxRightOffset: 20},
    {selector: '.some-div-to-float', maxUpOffset: 20, maxDownOffset: 20, maxLeftOffset: 20, maxRightOffset: 20}
  ]
});
layout

(optional): A single or an array of regions to match as layout level. For example:

cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  layout: [
    {top: 100, left: 0, width: 1000, height: 100},
    {selector: '.some-div-to-test-as-layout'}
  ]
});
strict

(optional): A single or an array of regions to match as strict level. For example:

cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  strict: [
    {top: 100, left: 0, width: 1000, height: 100},
    {selector: '.some-div-to-test-as-strict'}
  ]
});
content

(optional): A single or an array of regions to match as content level. For example:

cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  content: [
    {top: 100, left: 0, width: 1000, height: 100},
    {selector: '.some-div-to-test-as-content'}
  ]
});
accessibility

(optional): A single or an array of regions to perform accessibility checks, For example:

cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  accessibility: [
    {accessibilityType: 'RegularText', selector: '.some-div'},
    {accessibilityType: 'LargeText', selector: '//*[@id="main"]/h1', type: 'xpath'},
    {accessibilityType: 'BoldText', top: 100, left: 0, width: 1000, height: 100},
  ]
});

Possible accessibilityType values are: IgnoreContrast,RegularText,LargeText,BoldText and GraphicalObject.

region in shadow DOM

When the target region is within shadow DOM, there is a need to specify the path to that region by passing an array of selectors. Each entry in the array should contain a json with the following entries: type:css only, selector and nodeType. The element that contains the shadowRoot should be specified as nodeType:'shadow-root' and the final target region should contain nodeType:'element'

cy.eyesCheckWindow({
      target: 'region',
      selector: [{
        type: 'css',
        selector: 'ContainShadowRoot' ,
        nodeType: 'shadow-root'
      },{
        type: 'css',
        selector: 'targetRegion',
        nodeType: 'element'
      }]
    });
scriptHooks

(optional): A set of scripts to be run by the browser during the rendering. It is intended to be used as a means to alter the page's state and structure at the time of rendering. An object with the following properties:

  • beforeCaptureScreenshot: a script that runs after the page is loaded but before taking the screenshot. For example:
    cy.eyesCheckWindow({
      scriptHooks: {
        beforeCaptureScreenshot: "document.body.style.backgroundColor = 'gold'"
      }
    })
    
layoutBreakpoints

(optional): An array of viewport widths to use in order to take different sized dom captures.
It can also be specified as a boolean, at which point we will take dom captures using the device/browser widths configured.
Responsive pages display different content depending on the viewport's width, so this option can be used to instruct eyes to take dom captures using those widths, and test all responsive variations of your page.

Note that this option can also be specificed in eyesOpen or globally in applitools.config.js.

cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  layoutBreakpoints: [500, 1000]
});
sendDom

(optional): A flag to specify whether a capture of DOM and CSS should be taken when rendering the screenshot. The default value is true. This should only be modified to troubleshoot unexpected behavior, and not for normal production use.

cy.eyesCheckWindow({sendDom: false})
variationGroupId
cy.eyesCheckWindow({variationGroupId: 'Login screen variation #1'})

For more information, visit our documentation page: https://applitools.com/docs/features/baseline-variations-groups.html

waitBeforeCapture

A parameter that is set to wait a certain amount of milliseconds before capturing the pages snapshot. This will also apply between page resizes when using layoutBreakpoints.

cy.eyesOpen({
  waitBeforeCapture: 1000
  // ...
})

cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  waitBeforeCapture: 1000
})
useDom
cy.eyesCheckWindow({useDom: true})
enablePatterns
cy.eyesCheckWindow({enablePatterns: true})
matchLevel
cy.eyesCheckWindow({matchLevel: 'Layout'})

The different matchLevels are specified here: https://github.com/applitools/eyes.sdk.javascript1/blob/master/packages/eyes-sdk-core/lib/config/MatchLevel.js

visualGridOptions

An object that specifies options to configure renderings on the Ultrafast grid. Available options:

  • polyfillAdoptedStyleSheets: Creates a polyfill when the DOM contains adoptedStyleSheets (reference) for browsers that don't support it (It is currently supported only in Chrome). When true, those browsers will successfully include the css as inline style tags. When false, the css will not be included. When undefined, an error will be thrown with a message stating that this feature is not supported in the desired browser.
cy.eyesCheckWindow({
  visualGridOptions: {
    polyfillAdoptedStyleSheets: true
  }
})

Close

Close the applitools test and check that all screenshots are valid.

It is important to call this at the end of each test, symmetrically to eyesOpen(or in afterEach(), see Best practice for using the SDK).

Close receives no arguments.

cy.eyesClose();

Concurrency

The default level of concurrency for free accounts is 5. This means that only up to 5 visual tests can run in parallel, and therefore the execution might be slow. If your account does support a higher level of concurrency, it's possible to pass a different value by specifying it in the property testConcurrency in the applitools.config.js file (see Advanced configuration section below).

If you are interested in speeding up your visual tests, contact sdr@applitools.com to get a trial account and faster tests with more concurrency.

Advanced configuration

There are 3 ways to specify test configuration:

  1. Arguments to cy.eyesOpen()
  2. Environment variables
  3. The applitools.config.js file

The list above is also the order of precedence, which means that if you pass a property to cy.eyesOpen it will override the environment variable, and the environment variable will override the value defined in the applitools.config.js file.

Here are the available configuration properties:

Property name Default value Description
testName The value of Cypress's test title Test name. If this is not specified, the test name will be the title of the it block where the test is running.
browser { width: 800, height: 600, name: 'chrome' } The size and browser of the generated screenshots. This doesn't need to be the same as the browser that Cypress is running. It could be a different size and also a different browser. For more info and possible values, see the browser section below.
baselineEnvName undefined The name of the environment of the baseline.
envName undefined A name for the environment in which the application under test is running.
ignoreCaret false Whether to ignore or the blinking caret or not when comparing images.
matchLevel Strict The method to use when comparing two screenshots, which expresses the extent to which the two images are expected to match. Possible values are Strict, Exact, Layout and Content. Read more about match levels here.
baselineBranchName undefined The name of the baseline branch.
parentBranchName undefined Sets the branch under which new branches are created.
saveFailedTests false Set whether or not failed tests are saved by default.
saveNewTests false Set whether or not new tests are saved by default.
properties undefined Custom properties for the eyes test. The format is an array of objects with name/value properties. For example: [{name: 'My prop', value:'My value'}].
ignoreDisplacements false Sets whether Test Manager should intially display mismatches for image features that have only been displaced, as opposed to real mismatches.
compareWithParentBranch false
ignoreBaseline false
accessibilityValidation undefined An object that specifies the accessibility level and guidelines version to use for the screenshots. Possible values for level are None, AA and AAA, and possible values for guidelinesVersion are WCAG_2_0 and WCAG_2_1. For example: {level: 'AA', guidelinesVersion: 'WCAG_2_0'}
visualGridOptions undefined An object that specifies options to configure renderings on the Ultrafast grid. See more information here
layoutBreakpoints undefined When set to true, a snapshot of the DOM will be taken once for each browser/device size in the browser configuration. For optimization purposes, an array of numbers can be passed. The DOM snapshot will be taken once for every width in the array. For more information, see layoutBreakpoints
waitBeforeCapture 100 A parameter that is set to wait a certain amount of milliseconds before capturing the pages snapshot. This will also apply between page resizes when using layoutBreakpoints.

Global configuration properties:

The following configuration properties cannot be defined using the first method of passing them to cy.eyesOpen. They should be defined either in the applitools.config.js file or as environment variables.

Property name Default value Description
apiKey undefined The API key used for working with the Applitools Eyes server. See more info in the Applitools API key section above
showLogs false Whether or not you want to see logs of the Eyes-Cypress plugin. Logs are written to the same output of the Cypress process.
serverUrl Default Eyes server URL The URL of Eyes server
proxy undefined Sets the proxy settings to be used in network requests to Eyes server. This can be either a string to the proxy URI, or an object containing the URI, username and password.

For example:
{url: 'https://myproxy.com:443', username: 'my_user', password: 'my_password', isHttpOnly: false}
or:
"https://username:password@myproxy.com:443"
isDisabled false If true, all calls to Eyes-Cypress commands will be silently ignored.
failCypressOnDiff true If true, then the Cypress test fails if an eyes visual test fails. If false and an eyes test fails, then the Cypress test does not fail.
tapDirPath undefined Directory path of a results file. If set, then a TAP file is created in this directory, the tap file name is created with the name ISO-DATE-eyes.tap and contains the Eyes test results (Note that because of a current Cypress limitation the results are scoped per spec file, this means that the results file is created once for each spec file).
testConcurrency 5 The maximum number of tests that can run concurrently. The default value is the allowed amount for free accounts. For paid accounts, set this number to the quota set for your account.
dontCloseBatches false If true, batches are not closed for notifyOnCompletion.
disableBrowserFetching false If true, page resources for rendering on the UFG will be fetched from outside of the browser.
enablePatterns false
useDom false
batch undefined An object which describes different aspects of the batch. The following lines in this table depict the various ways to configure the batch.
batch.id random Provides ability to group tests into batches. Read more about batches here.
batch.name The name of the first test in the batch Provides a name to the batch (for display purpose only).
batch.sequenceName undefined Name for managing batch statistics.
batch.notifyOnCompletion false If true batch completion notifications are sent.
batch.properties undefined Custom properties for the entire batch. The format is an array of objects with name/value properties. For example: [{name: 'My prop', value:'My value'}].

Method 1: Arguments for cy.eyesOpen

Pass a config object as the only argument. For example:

cy.eyesOpen({
  appName: 'My app',
  batchName: 'My batch',
  ...
  // all other configuration variables apply
})

Method 2: Environment variables

The name of the corresponding environment variable is in uppercase, with the APPLITOOLS_ prefix, and separating underscores instead of camel case:

APPLITOOLS_APP_NAME
APPLITOOLS_SHOW_LOGS
APPLITOOLS_CONCURRENCY
APPLITOOLS_SAVE_DEBUG_DATA
APPLITOOLS_BATCH_ID
APPLITOOLS_BATCH_NAME
APPLITOOLS_BATCH_SEQUENCE_NAME
APPLITOOLS_BASELINE_ENV_NAME
APPLITOOLS_ENV_NAME
APPLITOOLS_IGNORE_CARET
APPLITOOLS_IS_DISABLED
APPLITOOLS_MATCH_LEVEL
APPLITOOLS_BRANCH_NAME
APPLITOOLS_BASELINE_BRANCH_NAME
APPLITOOLS_PARENT_BRANCH_NAME
APPLITOOLS_SAVE_FAILED_TESTS
APPLITOOLS_SAVE_NEW_TESTS
APPLITOOLS_COMPARE_WITH_PARENT_BRANCH
APPLITOOLS_IGNORE_BASELINE
APPLITOOLS_SERVER_URL
APPLITOOLS_PROXY
APPLITOOLS_NOTIFY_ON_COMPLETION

Method 3: The applitools.config.js file

It's possible to have a file called applitools.config.js at the same folder location as cypress.json. In this file specify the desired configuration, in a valid JSON format. For example:

module.exports = {
  appName: 'My app',
  showLogs: true,
  batchName: 'My batch'
  ...
  // all other configuration variables apply
}

Configuring the browser

Eyes-Cypress will take a screenshot of the page in the requested browser, the browser can be set in the applitools.config.js or by passing it to cy.eyesOpen.

Possible values are:

  • chrome
  • firefox
  • edgechromium
  • edgelegacy
  • ie10
  • ie11
  • safari
  • chrome-one-version-back
  • chrome-two-versions-back
  • firefox-one-version-back
  • firefox-two-versions-back
  • safari-one-version-back
  • safari-two-versions-back
  • edgechromium-one-version-back
  • edgechromium-two-versions-back

Previous browser versions

*-one-version-back and *-two-versions-back are relative to the version of the same browser. For example, if chrome refers to version 79, then chrome-one-version-back will be Chrome 78 and chrome-two-versions-back will be Chrome 77.

Getting a screenshot of multiple browsers in parallel

It's also possible to send an array of browsers, for example:

cy.eyesOpen({
  ...
  browser: [
    {width: 800, height: 600, name: 'firefox'},
    {width: 1024, height: 768, name: 'chrome'},
    {width: 1024, height: 768, name: 'ie11'}
  ]
}

Note: If only a single browser is set, then Eyes-Cypress changes the Cypress application viewport to that viewport size.

Device emulation

To enable chrome's device emulation, it's possible to send a device name and screen orientation, for example:

cy.eyesOpen({
  ...
  browser: {
    deviceName: 'iPhone X',
    screenOrientation: 'landscape',
    name: 'chrome' // optional, just to make it explicit this is browser emulation and not a real device. Only chrome is supported for device emulation.
  }
}

Possible values for screen orientation are landscape and portrait, and if no value is specified, the default is portrait.

The list of device names is available at https://github.com/applitools/eyes.sdk.javascript1/blob/master/packages/eyes-sdk-core/lib/config/DeviceName.js

In addition, it's possible to use chrome's device emulation with custom viewport sizes, pixel density and mobile mode, by passing deviceScaleFactor and mobile in addition to width and height. For example:

cy.eyesOpen({
  ...
  browser: {
    width: 800,
    height: 600,
    deviceScaleFactor: 3,
    mobile: true,
    name: 'chrome' // optional, just to make it explicit this is browser emulation and not a real device. Only chrome is supported for device emulation.
  }
}

iOS device

cy.eyesOpen({
  // ...
  browser: {
    iosDeviceInfo: {
      deviceName: 'iPhone XR',
      screenOrientation: 'landscape', // optional, default: 'portrait'
      iosVersion: 'latest' // optional, default: undefined (i.e. the default is determined by the Ultrafast grid)
    },
  }
})

The list of devices is available at https://github.com/applitools/eyes.sdk.javascript1/blob/master/packages/eyes-sdk-core/lib/config/IosDeviceName.js

Possible values for iosVersion are:

  • 'latest' - the latest iOS version that's supported by the UFG
  • 'latest-1' - one version prior to the latest version
  • undefined - the UFG's default

Intelligent Code Completion

There are two ways you can add Eyes-Cypress intelliSense to your tests:

1. Triple slash directives

The simplest way to see IntelliSense when typing an Eyes-Cypress command is to add a triple-slash directive to the head of your JavaScript or TypeScript testing file. This will turn the IntelliSense on a per file basis:

  /// <reference types="@applitools/eyes-cypress" />

2. Reference type declarations via tsconfig

Adding a tsconfig.json inside your cypress folder containing the following configuration should get intelligent code completion working on all your test files:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "allowJs": true,
    "baseUrl": "../node_modules",
    "types": [
      "@applitools/eyes-cypress"
    ]
  },
  "include": [
    "**/*.*"
  ]
}