Hello 🌎! Are you sick of having your Cypress tests fail at random? Do you find it difficult to keep up with the pace of development and achieve deadlines? Fear not, since today we'll be discussing a topic that could perhaps assist you with those issues: time management in Cypress.
Oh damn... next agile or scrum post? I can read few pages of manifesto myself...
Before you start rolling your eyes and grumbling at the idea of another another time management post, please bear with me. This isn't your normal "how to prioritize tasks" or "how to plan your day" advise. Instead, we'll get down to business with managing system time in Cypress tests.
So, why is time management sometimes vital in Cypress tests? For starters, time-related defects might be some of the most difficult to find and fix. They can also result in inconsistencies and flaky tests, which can be frustrating for both developers and QAs (and testers :troll-face:). Additionally, you may wish to simulate specific date and time settings in order to test certain functionality or edge cases after you fix some bug related to that.
But how can we actually manage time in Cypress tests? Are we Doctor Strange with Time Stone?
That's a great question! Although we might not have the Time Stone like Doctor Strange, we do have powerful tool at our disposal to manage time in Cypress tests. To control the system clock during your tests, one typical technique is to use the cy.clock() command. Using cy.clock() is fairly straightforward - simply call the command with a specific timestamp, and any subsequent time-related commands in your test will use that timestamp as the system clock. For example, you could set the system clock to a specific date and time in the past or future, and then test how your application behaves under those conditions.
Of course, there are potential drawbacks to managing time with Cypress tests, as with any testing technique. It will add additional complexity to your tests and, if not done appropriately, can result in false positives or false negatives. That is why it's critical to assess the benefits and drawbacks and carefully consider whether time management is required for your specific tests.
So there you have it: a quick rundown of time management in Cypress testing. Keep an eye out for future chapters. Have fun playing with cy.clock() then. Playing with new techniques and tools is the most important part of any "tutorial" (I'd call it more of an acknowledgment for a brilliant tool)!
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