Is There A Way To Assert That A Route Has Not Been Called In Cypress

Certainly! When working with Cypress for end-to-end testing, being able to assert that a specific route has not been called can be a handy feature. This can help ensure that your application behaves as expected and that certain scenarios are indeed not triggered during the testing process. In this article, we will explore how you can achieve this in Cypress to enhance your testing suite.

One way to verify whether a route has not been called in Cypress is by leveraging the cy.server() and cy.route() commands. These commands allow you to intercept and stub network requests, giving you control over the behavior of your application during tests.

To start, you can set up your test environment by defining the routes you want to watch and asserting that they are not called using Cypress commands. Here's a simple example to illustrate how you can achieve this:

// Specify the route you expect not to be called
cy.server();
cy.route('/api/route').as('routeAlias');

// Perform actions that should not trigger the specified route
// For instance, clicking a button, submitting a form, etc.

// Assert that the route has not been called
cy.wait('@routeAlias', { timeout: 10000 }).its('status').should('equal', 0);

In the code snippet above, we first set up a server using cy.server() to intercept network requests. We then define a route using cy.route() that we want to monitor, giving it an alias 'routeAlias'. Next, we perform the actions in our test that should not trigger the specified route. Finally, we use cy.wait() to wait for the route to not be called within a specified timeout and assert that its status remains 0, indicating that it was not called.

Another approach to achieve this is by using cy.intercept() instead of cy.route(). The cy.intercept() command is a more modern way to intercept and stub network requests in Cypress, providing additional flexibility and control over the behavior of intercepted requests.

Here is an example of how you can assert that a route has not been called using cy.intercept():

// Intercept the route and alias it
cy.intercept('GET', '/api/route').as('routeIntercept');

// Perform actions that should not trigger the specified route
// For instance, clicking a button, submitting a form, etc.

// Assert that the route has not been called
cy.wait('@routeIntercept', { timeout: 10000 })
  .its('response.statusCode')
  .should('equal', 0);

In this snippet, we use cy.intercept() to intercept the network request and give it an alias 'routeIntercept'. After performing the actions that should not trigger this route, we wait for the interception to occur and then assert that the response status code remains 0, indicating that the route was not called.

By incorporating these techniques into your Cypress tests, you can effectively assert that a route has not been called, enhancing the reliability and comprehensiveness of your test coverage. Experiment with these approaches in your testing suite to ensure that your application functions as intended across various scenarios. Happy testing!