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Migration Guide

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Migrating to Cypress 4.0

This guide details the changes and how to change your code to migrate to Cypress 4.0.

Mocha upgrade

Mocha was upgraded from 2.5.3 to 7.0.1, which includes a number of breaking changes and new features outlined in their changelog. Some changes you might notice are described below.

Breaking Change: invoke done callback and return a promise

Starting with Mocha 3.0.0, invoking a done callback and returning a promise in a test results in an error.

This error originates from Mocha and is discussed at length here and here.

The reason is that using two different ways to signal that a test is finished is usually a mistake and there is always a way to only use one. There is a proposal to handle this situation without erroring that may be released in a future version of Mocha.

In the meantime, you can fix the error by choosing a single way to signal the end of your test’s execution.

Example #1

Before This test has a done callback and a promise

it('uses invokes done and returns promise', function (done) {
  return codeUnderTest.doSomethingThatReturnsPromise().then((result) => {
    // assertions here
    done()
  })
})

After You can remove the done callback and return the promise instead:

it('uses invokes done and returns promise', function () {
  return codeUnderTest.doSomethingThatReturnsPromise().then((result) => {
    // assertions here
  })
})

Example #2

Before Sometimes it might make more sense to use the done callback and not return a promise:

it('uses invokes done and returns promise', function (done) {
  eventEmitter.on('change', () => {
    // assertions
    done()
  })

  return eventEmitter.doSomethingThatEmitsChange()
})

After In this case, you don’t need to return the promise:

it('uses invokes done and returns promise', function (done) {
  eventEmitter.on('change', () => {
    // assertions
    done()
  })

  eventEmitter.doSomethingThatEmitsChange()
})

Example #3

Test functions using async/await automatically return a promise, so they need to be refactored to not use a done callback.

Before This will cause an overspecified error.

it('uses async/await', async function (done) {
  const eventEmitter = await getEventEmitter()
  eventEmitter.on('change', () => done())
  eventEmitter.doSomethingThatEmitsChange()
})

After Update to the test code below.

it('uses async/await', async function () {
  const eventEmitter = await getEventEmitter()
  return new Promise((resolve) => {
    eventEmitter.on('change', () => resolve())
    eventEmitter.doSomethingThatEmitsChange()
  })
})

Tests require a title

Tests now require a title and will error when not provided one.

// Would show as pending in Cypress 3
// Will throw type error in Cypress 4:
it() // Test argument "title" should be a string. Received type "undefined"

Chai upgrade

Chai was upgraded from 3.5.0 to 4.2.0, which includes a number of breaking changes and new features outlined in Chai’s migration guide. Some changes you might notice are described below.

Breaking Change: assertions expecting numbers

Some assertions will now throw an error if the assertion’s target or arguments are not numbers, including within, above, least, below, most, increase and decrease.

// These will now throw errors:
expect(null).to.be.within(0, 1)
expect(null).to.be.above(10)
// This will not throw errors:
expect('string').to.have.a.length.of.at.least(3)

Breaking Change: empty assertions

The .empty assertion will now throw when it is passed non-string primitives and functions.

// These will now throw TypeErrors
expect(Symbol()).to.be.empty
expect(function() {}).to.be.empty

Breaking Change: non-existent properties

An error will throw when a non-existent property is read. If there are typos in property assertions, they will now appear as failures.

// Would pass in Cypress 3 but will fail correctly in 4
expect(true).to.be.ture

Sinon.JS upgrade

Sinon.JS was upgraded from 3.2.0 to 8.1.1, which includes a number of breaking changes and new features outlined in Sinon.JS’s migration guide. Some changes you might notice are described below.

Breaking Change: stub non-existent properties

An error will throw when trying to stub a non-existent property.

// Would pass in Cypress 3 but will fail in 4
cy.stub(obj, 'nonExistingProperty')

Breaking Change: reset() replaced by resetHistory()

For spies and stubs, the reset() method was replaced by resetHistory().

Before Spies and stubs using reset().

const spy = cy.spy()
const stub = cy.stub()

spy.reset()
stub.reset()

After Update spies and stubs should now use resetHistory().

const spy = cy.spy()
const stub = cy.stub()

spy.resetHistory()
stub.resetHistory()

Plugin Event before:browser:launch

Since we now support more advanced browser launch options, during before:browser:launch we no longer yield the second argument as an array of browser arguments and instead yield a launchOptions object with an args property.

You can see more examples of the new launchOptions in use in the Browser Launch API doc.

Before The second argument is no longer an array.

on('before:browser:launch', (browser, args) => {
  // will print a deprecation warning telling you
  // to change your code to the new signature
  args.push('--another-arg')
})

After Access the args property off launchOptions

on('before:browser:launch', (browser, launchOptions) => {
  launchOptions.args.push('--another-arg')
})

Electron options in before:browser:launch

Previously, you could pass options to the launched Electron BrowserWindow in before:browser:launch by modifying the launchOptions object.

Now, you must pass those options as launchOptions.preferences:

Before Passing BrowserWindow options on the launchOptions object is no longer supported.

on('before:browser:launch', (browser, args) => {
  args.darkTheme = true
})

After Pass BrowserWindow options on the options.preferences object instead.

on('before:browser:launch', (browser, launchOptions) => {
  launchOptions.preferences.darkTheme = true
})

Launching Chrome Canary with --browser

Before 4.0, cypress run --browser canary would run tests in Chrome Canary.

Now, you must pass --browser chrome:canary to select Chrome Canary.

See the docs for cypress run --browser for more information.

Before Passing canary will no longer find a browser

cypress run --browser canary

After Pass chrome:canary to launch Chrome Canary

cypress run --browser chrome:canary

Chromium-based browser family

We updated the Cypress browser objects of all Chromium-based browsers, including Electron, to have chromium set as their family field.

module.exports = (on, config) => {
  on('before:browser:launch', (browser = {}, launchOptions) => {
    if (browser.family === 'electron') {
      // would match Electron in 3.x
      // will match no browsers in 4.0.0
      return launchOptions
    }

    if (browser.family === 'chromium') {
      // would match no browsers in 3.x
      // will match any Chromium-based browser in 4.0.0
      // ie Chrome, Canary, Chromium, Electron, Edge (Chromium-based)
      return launchOptions
    }
  })
}

Example #1 (Finding Electron)

Before This will no longer find the Electron browser.

module.exports = (on, config) => {
  on('before:browser:launch', (browser = {}, args) => {
    if (browser.family === 'electron') {
      // run code for Electron browser in 3.x
      return args
    }
  })
}

After Use browser.name to check for Electron

module.exports = (on, config) => {
  on('before:browser:launch', (browser = {}, launchOptions) => {
    if (browser.name === 'electron') {
      // run code for Electron browser in 4.0.0
      return launchOptions
    }
  })
}

Example #2 (Finding Chromium-based browsers)

Before This will no longer find any browsers.

module.exports = (on, config) => {
  on('before:browser:launch', (browser = {}, args) => {
    if (browser.family === 'chrome') {
      // in 4.x, `family` was changed to 'chromium' for all Chromium-based browsers
      return args
    }
  })
}

After Use browser.name and browser.family to select non-Electron Chromium-based browsers

module.exports = (on, config) => {
  on('before:browser:launch', (browser = {}, launchOptions) => {
    if (browser.family === 'chromium' && browser.name !== 'electron') {
      // pass launchOptions to Chromium-based browsers in 4.0
      return launchOptions
    }
  })
}

cy.writeFile() yields null

cy.writeFile() now yields null instead of the contents written to the file. This change was made to more closely align with the behavior of Node.js fs.writeFile.

Before This assertion will no longer pass

cy.writeFile('path/to/message.txt', 'Hello World')
  .then((text) => {
    // Would pass in Cypress 3 but will fail in 4
    expect(text).to.equal('Hello World') // false
  })

After Instead read the contents of the file

cy.writeFile('path/to/message.txt', 'Hello World')
cy.readFile('path/to/message.txt').then((text) => {
  expect(text).to.equal('Hello World') // true
})

cy.contains() ignores invisible whitespaces

Browsers ignore leading, trailing, duplicate whitespaces. And Cypress now does that, too.

<p>hello
world</p>

cy.get('p').contains('hello world') // Fail in 3.x. Pass in 4.0.0.
cy.get('p').contains('hello\nworld') // Pass in 3.x. Fail in 4.0.0.

Node.js 8+ support

Cypress comes bundled with it’s own Node.js version. However, installing the cypress npm package uses the Node.js version installed on your system.

Node.js 4 reached its end of life on April 30, 2018 and Node.js 6 reached its end of life on April 30, 2019. See Node’s release schedule. These Node.js versions will no longer be supported when installing Cypress. The minimum Node.js version supported to install Cypress is Node.js 8.

CJSX is no longer supported

Cypress no longer supports CJSX (CoffeeScript + JSX), because the library used to transpile it is no longer maintained.

If you need CJSX support, you can use a pre-2.x version of the Browserify preprocessor.

npm install @cypress/[email protected]

// cypress/plugins/index.js
const browserify = require('@cypress/browserify-preprocessor')

module.exports = (on) => {
  on('file:preprocessor', browserify())
}