Migrating from Protractor to Cypress

Introduction

Protractor has been a popular end-to-end testing tool for Angular and AngularJS apps. However, Protractor is no longer included in new Angular projects as of Angular 12. We've got you covered here with this migration guide to help you and your team transition from Protractor to Cypress.

To start, let's look at a quick code sample to see how approachable Cypress is coming from Protractor. In this scenario, we have a test to validate that a user can sign up for a new account.

describe('Authorization tests', () => {
  it('allows the user to signup for a new account', () => {
    browser.get('/signup')
    element(by.css('#email-field')).sendKeys('user@email.com')
    element(by.css('#confirm-email-field')).sendKeys('user@email.com')
    element(by.css('#password-field')).sendKeys('testPassword1234')
    element(by.cssContainingText('button', 'Create new account')).click()

    expect(browser.getCurrentUrl()).toEqual('/signup/success')
  })
})

describe('Authorization Tests', () => {
  it('allows the user to signup for a new account', () => {
    cy.visit('/signup')
    cy.get('#email-field').type('user@email.com')
    cy.get('#confirm-email-field').type('user@email.com')
    cy.get('#password-field').type('testPassword1234')
    cy.get('button').contains('Create new account').click()

    cy.url().should('include', '/signup/success')
  })
})

Benefits of Using Cypress

As many developers can attest to, end-to-end testing is one of those things that they know they should do, but often do not. Or if they do run tests, the tests are often flaky and often very expensive due to how long it can take to run. And while there are often ideals of complete code coverage, the realities of business and deadlines often take precedence and the tests are left unwritten, or worse, ignored when errors are being reported because they are not reliable. Not only does Cypress make sure that your tests will be reliable, but it provides developers with tools that make e2e testing an asset to development rather than a hindrance.

Interact with your tests in a browser

When Protractor runs tests, the browser automation launches a browser instance and often runs through tests too fast for the human eye. Without additional configuration, this often leads to a reliance on lengthy terminal messages that can be expensive from a context-switching perspective.

With Cypress, your tests run in an interactive browser environment in real time. Cypress's Command Log displays the tests from your test suite and their assertions. When you click on a command or assertion in the command log, a DOM snapshot displays so you can see what the application under test looked like at the time of the test's execution. This allows you to see the real rendered UI and the behavior of the app under real user interactions. Since the app is loaded within a real browser, you can also manually explore its behavior while it is under the state of a desired test scenario.

Cypress also helps you to write your tests by making it as easy as possible to find the right CSS selectors for the DOM elements in your application with its Selector Playground. The Selector Playground helps you cut down on time spent finding the right selectors so you can focus on what's important: writing tests that verify your app's logic.

Faster feedback loops

When it comes to your end-to-end tests, being able to see your tests as they run is critical to allowing you to confidently iterate faster. With Cypress, your tests are automatically re-run upon file save as you are iterating on them.

Having your code editor and application under test within a browser side-by-side (shown below) while re-running tests on save is a highly productive workflow. It provides an instant feedback loop that allows you to iterate faster with confidence.

Time travel through tests

Cypress gives you time travel capabilities to see exactly how your app was behaving at any point during test execution. Cypress takes DOM snapshots of your application under test as the commands and assertions in your tests are executed. This enables you to view the real UI of your application at any point during your tests' execution. By clicking from one command to another in the command log, you can see which elements Cypress acted upon and how your application responded to the simulated real user behavior.

Gain Visibility in Headless Mode with Screenshots and Videos

Running browser tests in headless mode (locally or in continuous integration pipeline) can be a bit of a black-box without much visibility. When tests fail, error messages by themselves can often fall short in painting the picture of why something failed, especially if assertions were not explicit enough or too indirect. To understand the reason behind test failures it also helps to see the state of the app UI at the point of failure or see the events that led up to the failure.

Cypress assists with debugging in headless mode, by automatically taking a screenshot of the app UI and command log at the exact point of test failure. To help see everything that happened prior to test failure, Cypress provides a video recording (as an MP4 file) of a full test spec run by default.

Test Retries

End-to-end tests can be complicated because modern web applications are also complex. You may find that some features of your web application are challenging to test or the tests sporadically fail. We call these tests "flaky." Cypress allows you to retry failed tests. Sometimes tests will fail in a CI environment when they otherwise would pass on a developer's machine. Enabling test retries in the Cypress configuration can help you to get unblocked when unpredictable, flaky tests are occasionally failing.

Cypress Cloud goes a step further and helps you and your team to detect flaky tests that run in your CI/CD pipeline.

Getting Started

Recommended Installation

We recommend using our official Cypress Angular schematic to add Cypress to your Angular project:

ng add @cypress/schematic

This will install Cypress, add scripts for running Cypress in run and open mode, scaffold base Cypress files and directories, and (optional) prompt you to remove Protractor and reconfigure the default ng e2e command to use Cypress.

With our schematic installed and Protractor removed, you can run Cypress in open mode with the following command:

ng e2e

You can also use the following command to start Cypress in open mode:

ng run {your-project-name}:cypress-open

Both of these commands will launch Cypress in an Electron browser.

You can also launch Cypress via run mode, which runs headlessly:

ng run {your-project-name}:cypress-run

Manual Installation

While we recommend using our official Angular schematic, you can still install Cypress manually.

npm install --save-dev cypress

yarn add --dev cypress

Then, since Cypress can run in parallel with your application, let's install concurrently to simplify our npm script. This is optional; however, you will need another way to serve your Angular app for Cypress to run tests against your application.

npm install --save-dev concurrently

yarn add --dev concurrently

Then we will update our package.json with the following scripts:

// Example package.json
{
  "scripts": {
    "cy:open": "concurrently \"ng serve\" \"cypress open\"",
    "cy:run": "concurrently \"ng serve\" \"cypress run\""
  },
  "dependencies": { ... },
  "devDependencies": { ... }
}

Now, when we run:

npm run cy:open

yarn run cy:open

It will start up Cypress and our Angular app at the same time.

Again, we highly recommend using our Angular Schematic to install Cypress, and we plan on adding new capabilities to it over time.

Working with the DOM

How to Get DOM Elements

Getting a single element on the page

When it comes to e2e tests, one of the most common things you'll need to do is get one or more HTML elements on a page. Rather than split element fetching into multiple methods that you need to memorize, everything can be accomplished with cy.get while using CSS selectors or the preferred data attribute

// Get an element
element(by.tagName('h1'))

/// Get an element using a CSS selector.
element(by.css('.my-class'))

// Get an element with the given id.
element(by.id('my-id'))

// Get an element using an input name selector.
element(by.name('field-name'))

//Get an element by the text it contains within a certain CSS selector
element(by.cssContainingText('.my-class', 'text'))

//Get the first element containing a specific text (only for link elements)
element(by.linkText('text')

// Get an element
cy.get('h1')

// Get an element using a CSS selector.
cy.get('.my-class')

// Get an element with the given id.
cy.get('#my-id')

// Get an element using an input name selector.
cy.get('input[name="field-name"]')

//Get an element by the text it contains within a certain CSS selector
cy.get('.my-class').contains('text')

//Get the first element containing a specific text (available for any element)
cy.contains('text')

You can also get elements by their text value. This can be accomplished using cy.contains while using CSS selectors to account for all use cases.

// Get an element by the text it contains within a certain CSS selector
element(by.cssContainingText('.my-class', 'text'))

// Get the first element containing a specific text (only for link elements)
element(by.linkText('text'))

// Get an element by the text it contains within a certain CSS selector
cy.get('.my-class').contains('text')

// Get the first element containing a specific text (available for any element)
cy.contains('text')

Getting multiple elements on a page

When you want to get access to more than one element on the page, you would need to chain the .all() method. However, in Cypress, no syntax change is necessary!

// Get all list-item elements on the page
element.all(by.tagName('li'))

/// Get all elements by using a CSS selector.
element.all(by.css('.list-item'))

// Find an element using an input name selector.
element.all(by.name('field-name'))

// Get all list-item elements on the page
cy.get('li')

/// Get all elements by using a CSS selector.
cy.get('.list-item')

// Find an element using an input name selector.
cy.get('input[name="field-name"]')

Selector Playground

For those who are big fans of Protractor's Element Explorer functionality, Cypress also provides you with a Selector Playground that allows you to:

• Determine a unique selector for an element
• See what elements match a given selector
• See what element matches a string of text

The Selector Playground can be useful when you need to find a specific selector to use in your Cypress tests.

How to Interact with DOM Elements

// Click on the element
element(by.css('button')).click()

// Send keys to the element (usually an input)
element(by.css('input')).sendKeys('my text')

// Clear the text in an element (usually an input).
element(by.css('input')).clear()

// Check the first checkbox on a page
element.all(by.css('[type="checkbox"]')).first().click()

// Check a radio button with the value "radio1"
element(by.css('[type="radio"][value="radio1"]')).click()

// Uncheck the first checkbox that is checked
element.all(by.css('[type="checkbox"][checked="true"]')).first().click()

// Select an option with the text value "my value" from a select list
element(by.cssContainingText('option', 'my value')).click()

// Scroll an element into view
browser
  .actions()
  .mouseMove(element(by.id('my-id')))
  .perform()

// Click on the element
cy.get('button').click()

// Send keys to the element (usually an input)
cy.get('input').type('my text')

// Clear the text in an element (usually an input)
cy.get('input').clear()

// Check the first checkbox on a page
cy.get('[type="checkbox"]').first().check()

// Check a radio button with the value "radio1"
cy.get('[type="radio"]').check('radio1')

// Uncheck the first checkbox that is not disabled
cy.get('[type="checkbox"]').not('[disabled]').first().uncheck()

// Select an option with the text value "my value" from a select list
cy.get('select[name="optionsList"]').select('my value')

// Scroll an element into view
cy.get('#my-id').scrollIntoView()

Assertions

Similar to Protractor, Cypress enables use of human readable assertions.

Here are some common DOM element assertions with Cypress and equivalent assertions with Protractor.

Length

const list = element.all(by.css('li.selected'))
expect(list.count()).toBe(3)

// retry until we find 3 matching <li.selected>
cy.get('li.selected').should('have.length', 3)

Class

expect(
  element(by.tagName('form')).element(by.tagName('input')).getAttribute('class')
).not.toContain('disabled')

// retry until this input does not have class disabled
cy.get('form').find('input').should('not.have.class', 'disabled')

Value

expect(element(by.tagName('textarea'))).getAttribute('value')).toBe('foo bar baz')

// retry until this textarea has the correct value
cy.get('textarea').should('have.value', 'foo bar baz')

Text Content

// assert the element's text content is exactly the given text
expect(element(by.id('user-name')).getText()).toBe('Joe Smith')
// assert the element's text includes the given substring
expect(element(by.id('address')).getText()).toContain('Atlanta')
// assert the span does not contain 'click me'
const child = element(by.tagName('a')).getWebElement()
const parent = child.getDriver().findElement(by.css('span.help'))
expect(parent.getText()).not.toContain('click me')
// assert that the greeting starts with "Hello"
element(by.id('greeting').getText()).toMatch(/^Hello/)

// assert the element's text content is exactly the given text
cy.get('#user-name').should('have.text', 'Joe Smith')
// assert the element's text includes the given substring
cy.get('#address').should('include.text', 'Atlanta')
// retry until this span does not contain 'click me'
cy.get('a').parent('span.help').should('not.contain', 'click me')
// the element's text should start with "Hello"
cy.get('#greeting')
  .invoke('text')
  .should('match', /^Hello/)
// tip: use cy.contains to find element with its text
// matching the given regular expression
cy.contains('#a-greeting', /^Hello/)

Visibility

// assert button is visible
expect(element(by.tagName('button')).isDisplayed()).toBe(true)

// retry until this button is visible
cy.get('button').should('be.visible')

Existence

// assert the spinner no longer exists
expect(element(by.id('loading')).isPresent()).toBe(false)

// retry until loading spinner no longer exists
cy.get('#loading').should('not.exist')

State

expect(element('input[type="radio"]').isSelected()).toBeTruthy()

// retry until our radio is checked
cy.get(':radio').should('be.checked')

CSS

// assert .completed has css style "line-through" for "text-decoration" property
expect(element(by.css('.completed')).getCssValue('text-decoration')).toBe(
  'line-through'
)

// assert the accordion does not have a "display: none"
expect(element(by.id('accordion')).getCssValue('display')).not.toBe('none')

// retry until .completed has matching css
cy.get('.completed').should('have.css', 'text-decoration', 'line-through')

// retry while .accordion css has the "display: none" property
cy.get('#accordion').should('not.have.css', 'display', 'none')

Disabled property

<input type="text" id="example-input" disabled />

// assert the input is disabled
expect(element(by.id('example-input')).isEnabled()).toBe(false)

cy.get('#example-input')
  .should('be.disabled')
  // let's enable this element from the test
  .invoke('prop', 'disabled', false)

cy.get('#example-input')
  // we can use "enabled" assertion
  .should('be.enabled')
  // or negate the "disabled" assertion
  .and('not.be.disabled')

Cypress has one additional feature that can make a critical difference in the reliability of your tests' assertions: retry-ability. When your test fails an assertion or command, Cypress will mimic a real user with build-in wait times and multiple attempts at asserting your tests in order to minimize the amount of false negatives / positives.

describe('verify elements on a page', () => {
  it('verifies that a link is visible', () => {
    expect($('a.submit-link').isDisplayed()).toBe(true)
  })
})

describe('verify elements on a page', () => {
  it('verifies that a link is visible', () => {
    cy.get('a.submit-link').should('be.visible')
  })
})

In the example above, if the submit link does not appear on the page at the exact moment when Protractor runs the test (which can be due to any number of factors including API calls, slow browser rendering, etc.), your test will fail. However, Cypress factors these conditions into its assertions and will only fail if the time goes beyond a reasonable amount.

Negative assertions

There are positive and negative assertions. Negative assertions have the "not" chainer prefixed to the assertion. Examples of negative assertions in both Protractor and Cypress:

expect(
  element(by.css('.todo'))
    .getAttribute('class')
    .then((classes) => {
      return classes.split(' ').indexOf('completed') !== -1
    })
).not.toBe(true)

expect(element(by.id('loading')).isDisplayed()).not.toBe(true)

cy.get('.todo').should('not.have.class', 'completed')
cy.get('#loading').should('not.be.visible')

Network Handling

Network Spying

Protractor doesn't offer a built-in solution for network spying. With Cypress, you can leverage the intercept API to spy on and manage the behavior of any network request.

For example, if you wanted to wait on a network request to complete before continuing your test, you could write the following:

it('should display a Load More button after fetching and displaying a list of users', () => {
  cy.visit('/users')
  cy.intercept('/users/**')
  cy.get('button').contains('Load More')
})

Cypress will automatically wait for any request to /users/** to complete before continuing your test.

Network Stubbing

Cypress's intercept API also allows you to stub any network request for your app under test. You can use the intercept API to make assertions based on different simulated responses for your network requests. For example, you might want to simulate a 3rd-party API outage by forcing a network error and test your app under those conditions. With Cypress's intercept API, this and more is possible!

it('should display a warning when the third-party API is down', () => {
  cy.intercept(
    'GET',
    'https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=Atlanta',
    { statusCode: 500 }
  )
  cy.get('.weather-forecast').contains('Weather Forecast Unavailable')
})

You can also use the intercept API to stub a custom response for specific network requests:

it('projects endpoint should return 2 projects', () => {
  cy.intercept('/projects', {
    body: [{ projectId: '1' }, { projectId: '2' }],
  }).as('projects')
  cy.wait('@projects').its('response.body').should('have.length', 2)
})

Navigating Websites

When you want to visit a page, you can do so with the following code:

it('visits a page', () => {
  browser.get('/about')
  browser.navigate().forward()
  browser.navigate().back()
})

it('visits a page', () => {
  cy.visit('/about')
  cy.go('forward')
  cy.go('back')
})

However, Protractor assumes that all websites you want to visit are Angular apps. As a result, you have to take an extra step to disable this behavior. When you write Cypress tests though, you don't need to do any extra work!

it('visit a non-Angular page', () => {
  browser.waitForAngularEnabled(false)
  browser.get('/about')
})

it('visit a non-Angular page', () => {
  cy.visit('/about')
})

Automatic Retrying and Waiting

Web applications are usually rarely synchronous. With Protractor, you may be accustomed to adding arbitrary timeouts or using the waitForAngular API to wait for Angular to finish rendering before attempting to interact with an element.

With Cypress, commands that query the DOM are automatically retried. Cypress will automatically wait and retry most commands until an element appears in the DOM. If an element is not actionable within the defaultCommandTimeout setting, the command will fail. This enables you to write tests without the need for arbitrary timeouts, enabling you to write more predictable tests.

// Clicking a button
element(by.css('button')).click()
// Waiting for Angular to re-render the page
browser.waitForAngular()
// Make assertion after waiting for Angular to update
expect(by.css('.list-item').getText()).toEqual('my text')

// Clicking a button
cy.get('button').click()
// Make assertion. No waiting necessary!
cy.get('.list-item').contains('my text')

Cypress vs WebDriver Control Flow

Cypress commands are similar to Protractor code at first glance. Cypress commands are not invoked immediately and are enqueued to run serially at a later time. Cypress commands might look like promises, but the Cypress API is not an exact implementation of Promises. The modern web is asychronous, therefore you need to interact with modern web apps in an asynchronous fashion. This is why the Cypress API is asynchronous. This allows you to write deterministic tests since all of your commands are executed serially, enabling your tests to run predictably each time.

In comparison, Protractor's WebDriverJS API is based on promises, which is managed by a control flow. This Control Flow enables you to write asynchronous Protractor tests in a synchronous style.

// Click on the element
// This code looks synchronous!
element(by.css('button')).click()

// Send keys to the element (usually an input)
element(by.css('input')).sendKeys('my text')

Protractor's Control Flow can be disabled, allowing you to write your test cases as asynchronous functions.

// Wait for the button to be found and click it
await element(by.css('button')).click()

// Wait for the input to be found and type into the field
await element(by.css('input')).sendKeys('my text')

The Control Flow example rewritten as a Cypress test would look something like this:

// Click on the element
cy.get('button').click()

// Send keys to the element (usually an input)
cy.get('input').type('my text')

Using Page Objects

A common pattern when writing end-to-end tests, especially with Protractor, is Page Objects. Page Objects can simplify your test code by creating reusable methods if you find yourself writing the same test code across multiple test cases.

Protractor without Page Objects

// Type into username field
element(by.css('.username')).sendKeys('my username')
// Type into password field
element(by.css('.password')).sendKeys('my password')
// Click the login button
element(by.css('button')).click()

Protractor with Page Objects

const page = {
  login: () => {
    element(by.css('.username')).sendKeys('my username')
    element(by.css('.password')).sendKeys('my password')
    element(by.css('button')).click()
  },
}

it('should display the username of a logged in user', () => {
  page.login()
  expect(by.css('.username').getText()).toEqual('my username')
})

You can use the same Page Object pattern within your Cypress tests:

Cypress without Page Objects

cy.get('.username').type('my username')
cy.get('.password').type('my password')
cy.get('button').click()

Cypress with Page Objects

const page = {
  login: () => {
    cy.get('.username').type('my username')
    cy.get('.password').type('my password')
    cy.get('button').click()
  },
}

it('should display the username of a logged in user', () => {
  page.login()
  cy.get('.username').contains('my username')
})

Cypress also provides a Custom Command API to enable you to add methods to the cy global directly:

Cypress.Commands.add('login', (username, password) => {
  cy.get('.username').type(username)
  cy.get('.password').type(password)
})

You can use your own custom commands in any of your tests:

it('should display the username of a logged in user', () => {
  cy.login('Matt', Cypress.env('password'))
  cy.get('.username').contains('Matt')
})

Continuous Integration

Cypress makes it easy to run your tests in all Continuous Integration environments.

Check out our in-depth guides to run your Cypress tests in GitHub Actions, CircleCI, GitLab CI, Bitbucket Pipeline, or AWS CodeBuild.

We also have code samples to get Cypress up and running in many of the other popular CI environments. Even if your CI provider isn't listed, you can still run Cypress in your CI environment.

Parallelization

Cypress Cloud allows you to run your test files in parallel across multiple CI machines.

With Cypress, your tests can be parallelized on a per spec file basis. This is an important distinction between Protractor and Cypress parallelization. One of the reasons why Cypress parallelizes tests per file is because some users may write tests that build up state that subsequent tests, although we do not recommend relying on the state of previous tests.

With Cypress, all you need to do is pass the --parallel and --record flag to cypress run, and it will take care of the rest for you:

cypress run --record --parallel

Angular Schematic Configuration

The Cypress Angular Schematic has many configurable options to fit the needs of your project.

Running the builder with a specific browser

Before running Cypress in open mode, ensure that you have started your application server using ng serve.

"cypress-open": {
  "builder": "@cypress/schematic:cypress",
  "options": {
    "watch": true,
    "headless": false,
    "browser": "chrome"
  },
  "configurations": {
    "production": {
      "devServerTarget": "{project-name}:serve:production"
    }
  }
}

Recording test results to Cypress Cloud

We recommend setting your Cypress Cloud recording key as an environment variable and NOT as a builder option when running it in CI.

"cypress-run": {
  "builder": "@cypress/schematic:cypress",
  "options": {
    "devServerTarget": "{project-name}:serve",
    "record": true,
    "key": "your-cypress-dashboard-recording-key"
  },
  "configurations": {
    "production": {
      "devServerTarget": "{project-name}:production"
    }
  }
}

Read the docs on recording test results to Cypress Cloud to learn more.

Specifying a custom Cypress configuration file

It may be useful to have different Cypress configuration files per environment (ie. development, staging, production).

"cypress-run": {
  "builder": "@cypress/schematic:cypress",
  "options": {
    "devServerTarget": "{project-name}:serve",
    "configFile": "cypress.production.config.js"
  },
  "configurations": {
    "production": {
      "devServerTarget": "{project-name}:production"
    }
  }
}

Running Cypress in parallel mode within CI

"cypress-run": {
  "builder": "@cypress/schematic:cypress",
  "options": {
    "devServerTarget": "{project-name}:serve",
    "parallel": true,
    "record": true,
    "key": "your-cypress-dashboard-recording-key"
  },
  "configurations": {
    "production": {
      "devServerTarget": "{project-name}:production"
    }
  }
}

Code Coverage

As you write more and more end-to-end tests, you will find yourself wondering - do I need to write more tests? Are there parts of the application still untested? Are there parts of the application that perhaps are tested too much? This code coverage guide is an excellent resource to learn how to add code coverage.

Questions or Issues?

Visit our plugins discussion to ask questions or report issues related to our Cypress Angular Schematic.

Next Steps

For more information on how to create end-to-end tests with Cypress, be sure to check out our official documentation here.

FAQs

Do I have to replace all of my tests with Cypress immediately?

Absolutely not. While it might sound ideal to replace Protractor immediately, you can gradually migrate Protractor tests over to Cypress.

Can Protractor and Cypress coexist in the same app?

Yes! Your Protractor tests would continue to live in the e2e directory that Angular CLI scaffolded while all Cypress tests would live in a sibling folder named cypress.

.
├── cypress
├── e2e
├── src
├── .editorconfig
├── .gitignore
├── angular.json
├── browserslist
├── cypress.config.js
├── karma.conf.js
├── package.json
├── README.md
├── tsconfig.app.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── tsconfig.spec.json
└── tslint.json

In fact, as you work through migrating to Cypress, we believe that progressively enhancing your e2e tests with Cypress is the best path forward to ensure that feature development is not impacted.