Intro

Boilerplate to run web app and automated browser test client in separate docker containers

Also provides github actions workflow template

Motivation

For me, screenshot tests don't match locally with Github Actions. But I am also on a non-standard OS (Qubes OS) which runs linux using Xen hypervisor, so that may be why

I'm doing this to make it easy for me to start a new web app project with reliable test driven functionality

Test driven development is nice and fun to have, and makes refactoring a breeze. As such I want to make this the core of my development habit as I learn

This tries to help get rid of the tedium of setting up automated testing

Docker is used to make screenshot tests reliable across different machines, e.g. the local dev environment and CI tests in the cloud

It probably won't help with enabling exact screen renderings across different CPU architectures though, from what I've read online, but I don't have experience to say that definitively

Usage

This is tested in Linux. I have no idea if it may work in Windows

Installation

This needs Docker installed so that there is access to docker and docker compose

Setup

• Specify image and docker repository names for your app and test client in the docker/.env file, as indicated by the docker/env_example file
• Web app code goes in app/ dir, and test client goes in test/ dir. Maybe best to use submodules for those? Idk...
• Environment for your app is specified in docker/Dockerfile.app
• Environment for your test client is specified in docker/Dockerfile.test

Pre-mod

You'll want to delete the if statement in .github/workflows/test.yml to actually run the app test

Permissions

For the workflow to be able to make pull requests, you need to set permissions.

In your repository, go into Settings > Actions > General

There under Workflow permissions check the Allow GitHub Actions to create and approve pull requests

Running

The shell scripts to run the app are in bin folder

• Run web app with ./bin/up_app from repository root dir
  • Can use options to set entrypoint and command for web app container
  • Run ./bin/up_app -h for usage
• In separate terminal run test client shell with ./bin/run_test
  • This allows you to run npm commands there directly