Orchestrating Web Server Integration Tests Using npm

It can be tricky to run integration tests targeting a web server using the command line. Essentially, we need to:

• Start the application
• Wait for the application to be ready (begin responding to requests)
• Run integration tests
• Terminate the server after test run is complete

We can do all of this with a simple npm script:

package.json

{
  "scripts": {
    "integration-tests": "concurrently -k -s first \"npm start\" \"wait-on http://localhost:8081/ && COMMAND_TO_RUN_HERE\""
  }
}

And run the script:

> npm run integration-tests

Let’s break down how it works

The concurrently npm package uses these arguments:

• -k (or --kill-others): kill other processes if one exits or dies
  • After the test run concludes we terminate the web server too.
• -s first (or --success first): Return exit code of zero or one based on the success or failure of the “first” child to terminate, the “last child”, or succeed only if “all” child processes succeed. [choices: “first”, “last”, “all”] [default: “all”]
  • Since the tests will terminate before the web server the exit code of the tests will be returned.
• List each item to execute — the commands for starting the web server and running the integration tests. Since we are inside a JSON string we can escape the inner double quotes with \".
  • We want the tests to run after the web server has started up and is responding to requests. We can use the wait-on npm package to wait for a url to start working. Adjust the http://localhost:8081/ in the script as needed.

Final note

Lastly, don’t forget to npm install concurrently wait-on --save-dev into your project! Happy testing!