How It Works

In Quickstrom, a tester writes specifications for web applications. When checking a specification, the following happens:

  1. Quickstrom navigates to the origin page, and awaits the readyWhen condition, that a specified element is present in the DOM.

  2. It generates a random sequence of actions to simulate user interaction. Many types of actions can be generated, e.g. clicks, key presses, focus changes, reloads, navigations.

  3. Before each new action is picked, the DOM state is checked to find only the actions that are possible to take. For instance, you cannot click buttons that are not visible. From that subset, Quickstrom picks the next action to take.

  4. After each action has been taken, Quickstrom queries and records the state of relevant DOM elements. The sequence of actions takens and observed states is called a behavior.

  5. The specification defines a proposition, a logical formula that evaluates to true or false, which is used to determine if the behavior is accepted or rejected.

  6. When a rejected behavior is found, Quickstrom shrinks the sequence of actions to the smallest, still failing, behavior. The tester is presented with a minimal failing test case based on the original larger behavior.

Now, how do you write specifications and propositions? Let’s have a look at The Specification Language.