End-to-End (E2E) Tests
Overview
End-to-End (E2E) tests are comprehensive tests that simulate real user scenarios by verifying the system's behavior from start to finish. These tests validate the complete flow of the application, including integration between different components, services, databases, and external dependencies, ensuring the system works as expected in a production-like environment.
Role of E2E Tests in Our Project
In this project, E2E tests play a critical role by verifying the overall user experience and business flows. We use Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) principles to design and automate many of these tests, which helps us bridge the gap between business requirements and technical implementation.
Key Characteristics
- Real user scenarios: Tests replicate typical user journeys through the system.
- Cross-component verification: Ensures integration between frontend, backend, databases, and third-party systems.
- Production-like environment: Executed against staging or dedicated test environments mimicking production.
- Automated acceptance tests: A subset of acceptance criteria is automated as E2E tests to provide fast feedback and regression coverage.
BDD and Automated Acceptance Tests
Our approach includes writing E2E tests in a BDD style, using Given-When-Then syntax to make test scenarios:
- Clear and understandable for both technical and non-technical stakeholders,
- Aligned with business requirements as captured in user stories,
- Reusable as living documentation of expected system behavior.
These automated acceptance tests validate that new features meet agreed criteria and help prevent regressions.
Other Objectives of E2E Testing
Besides automated acceptance tests, our E2E test suite also aims to:
- Verify critical workflows: Confirm end-to-end functionality of core business processes beyond acceptance criteria,
- Test system integrations: Validate communication and data flow between subsystems and external APIs,
- Identify environment issues: Catch configuration or deployment problems that unit or integration tests cannot detect,
- Validate security flows: Test authentication, authorization, and other security-related user journeys,
- Assess performance bottlenecks: Through test runs simulate real user loads and timing of critical flows (where applicable),
- Improve confidence: Provide assurance to stakeholders about system stability and readiness for release.
Summary
| Aspect | Description |
|---|---|
| Scope | Full system workflows from user interaction to backend and third-party integrations |
| Approach | Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) with Given-When-Then style scenarios |
| Automation | Automated acceptance criteria tests plus additional critical flow and integration tests |
| Environment | Executed against staging or dedicated E2E test environments |
| Main Benefits | Validates user journeys, reduces risk, ensures system readiness, documents behavior clearly |