vuex-test

vuex-test is a small library of helpers intended to promote better design patterns and easier testing of Vuex actions.

vuex-test is under heavy active development and is currently very experimental. Please add any bugs, requests, or other feedback to the issue tracker.

Installation

Install using yarn:

yarn add --dev vuex-test

Install using npm:

npm install --save-dev vuex-test

Usage

vuex-test exposes it's helpers as functions that can be imported and used in tests. Since vuex-test aims to be test-framework-agnostic, each helper will either throw an error if a test fails, or not throw an error if the test succeeds. You can handle this however you like in your tests. You may use ES2015 or CommonJS style imports.

Using ES2015 Modules style:

import { testAsyncAction } from 'vuex-test';

Using CommonJS style:

var testAsyncAction = require('vuex-test').testAsyncAction;

Writing Testable Vuex Actions with Asynchronous Code

Correctly testing Vuex actions that involve asynchronous code requires that you adhere to one simple design principle:

Any action that involves asynchronous code should only have side effects that are caused by either commit or dispatch.

Any side effects that happen outside of commit or dispatch will be untestable. This means that things like router.push need to happen inside of a synchronous action.

Let's take a look at an example Vuex action used for user login. If the user is not already logged in, it asynchronously hits an API endpoint, commits some data, and then reroutes the user to the dashboard:

async login({ getters, commit, dispatch }, payload) {
  if (!getters.userLoggedIn()) {
    const response = await axios.post('/login', {
      user: payload.user,
      password: payload.password
    });
    commit('setCurrentUser', response.data.user);
    dispatch('redirectToDashboard');
  }
},
redirectToDashboard() {
  router.push({ name: 'Dashboard' });
},

Testing a Vuex Action with Asynchronous Code

You can test an asynchronous Vuex action using testAsyncAction. It takes a single object providing the name of the action to be tested, test setup, and mocks needed for the test:

{
  action, // the action being tested,
  payload, // an optional payload that should be passed to the action
  mocks: {
    state, // an object that mocks the initial state of the store
    getters, // an object that mocks getters passed into the action
  },
  expected: {
    commits, // an array of expected commits in the order that they should occur
    dispatches // an array of expected dispatched in the order that they should occur
  },
  done // a done callback provided by your test framework that gets called when the test is complete
}

You can specify each expected commit or dispatch as an object with a type and an optional payload:

{
  type, // the name of a commit or dispatch that should be called
  payload // an optional payload object that should be passed to the commit or dispatch
}

The idea is borrowed directly from the Vuex documentation testing page but is improved by adding the ability to test dispatches and mock getters. testAsyncAction counts each commit and dispatch and matches them against expected commits and dispatches. If any of these occur out of order or with unexpected payloads, testAsyncAction throws an error. Since testAsyncAction can't know when an action is finished, it mocks commit and dispatch internally to count occurrences and compares this to the expected number of commits and dispatches provided. This means that any additional commits or dispatches that happen after successful call will not be tested.

Here's an example test for the login action from the previous section:

testAsyncAction({
  action: login,
  payload: { user: 'user@email.com', password: 'password123' },
  mocks: {
    state: { user: null },
    getters: {
      userLoggedIn() {
        return false;
      }
    }
  },
  expected: {
    commits: [
      { type: 'setCurrentUser', payload: expectedUserResponse }
    ],
    dispatches: [
      { type: 'redirectToDashboard' }
    ]
  },
  done
});

testAsyncAction will throw an error if any of the tests fail, or not throw if the test passes.