Automated System Tests

What?

vAirify has a suite of automated system tests that can be run against the most main branch of the code locally. There is one for the backend API and scripts and another for the UI dashboard.

Why?

These tests provide a quick and easy way to ensure that the various processes within vAirify are working as expected. For example, if changes have been made to the UI, run the Playwright tests to ensure everything is still working as expected and no regression has been introduced.

This allows early detection of anything that may have broken before it is subsequently deployed. The tests have been written to cover specific risks, or to verify the acceptance criteria of features we have developed are met

Where?

There are two suites, they can be found in the following locations:

• air-quality-ui

  • The suite for the dashboard can be found in the system_tests directory in the air-quality-ui directory.

• air-quality-backend

  • The suite for the backend elements of vAirify can be found in the system_tests directory in air-quality-backend.

When?

These test frameworks should be run when you have finished changing parts of vAirify and before the code is deployed.

How?

To run the suites follow the steps below:

air-quality-ui

The UI dashboard tests use the Playwright framework. This allows you to automate the UI and assert values and components are correctly displayed. It will need to be installed locally, follow the directions in their documentation.

To run all tests in a headless manner, from the air-quality-ui directory run the following CLI command:

    npx playwright test

when the tests have completed a webpage will load to show the results of each test.

If you want to run individual tests from a UI, add the ui flag and a UI will load that allow you to select individual tests to run. This has many features to visualise the test execution and explore network calls or errors.

    npx playwright test --ui

At times you may want to debug tests so you can visually see the test flow and where they are failing. The debug flag will open up a browser and a playwright inspector. This will let you "step over" which executes each test step sequentially allowing you to see the exact moment of failure

    npx playwright test --debug

air-quality-backend

To run the backend system tests, ensure that the conda environment (the same as required to run the ETL scripts) is activated.

A local database for the tests to execute against is recommended as several tests seed data to the database. To create one, set up a local MongoDB collection and follow the instructions in the deployment\database\liquibase\liquibase.md.

Once established, navigate to the .env of the air-quality-backend - this should already be set up following the instructions in the backend README, however needs modifying:

• verify MONGO_DB_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017 is set
• set the MONGO_DB_NAME to the name of the collection that will be used for running the tests against.
• set FORECAST_RETRIEVAL_PERIOD=0 - stops the tests requesting 7 days of data to fill in missing gaps in database - faster!
• set IN_SITU_RETRIEVAL_PERIOD=0 - stops the tests requesting 7 days of data to fill in missing gaps in database - faster!

Then from the root directory for the backend (air-quality-backend) run the following command in your terminal:

    python -m pytest .\system_tests\

The results should be printed in the terminal showing the which tests passed or failed.

Alternatively, from within PyCharm you can right click on the folder system_tests and click 'Run'. You will need to ensure you are using the correct Python interpreter and that the working directory is set to air-quality-backend. To do this:

• Navigate to system_tests in the backend in PyCharm.
• Right click on the folder and select 'Modify Run Configuration'
• Ensure the working directory is set to \air-quality-backend