Load Testing with Cypress - advanced
This tutorial shows you how to efficiently set up a browser-based load test using existing Cypress tests in the Step automation platform.
Get Step SaaS for free to follow this tutorialTest Scenario
In this tutorial, we will use a sample online store application based on OpenCart as our Application Under Test (AUT). The AUT has been deployed at the following URL: https://opencart-prf.exense.ch/
Our first test case, “TC01 Place Order”, simulates a typical user visit to our online store, where the user searches for a product, adds it to the shopping cart and completes the order.
The objective of this tutorial is to simulate 10 concurrent visits by executing this test case with 10 virtual users simultaneously.
The tutorial involves the following steps:
The main advantage of Step is the ability to reuse automation artifacts, so if you have already followed our Synthetic Monitoring with Cypress or RPA with Cypress tutorials, you can go straight to Configure the load test in Step.
1. Set up the Cypress project
Clone the Cypress sample project from GitHub:
git clone https://github.com/exense/step-samples
Optionally, run the Cypress test locally:
cd step-samples/keywords/cypress/opencart
npm install
npx cypress run --headed
Zip the Cypress project that will be uploaded to Step:
cd ..
zip -r opencart.zip opencart/
2. Configure the load test in Step
Log in to the Step Portal, or sign up for free and create a Step Cluster with 10 [java, ui-automation] Agents, following this Quick setup guide.
Once you’ve scaled the Agents, click Open in Step to open the Step application and carry on with the tutorial.
2.1. Upload the Cypress project
Create a Keyword for our test case:
- Go to the Keywords section
- Click on the New Keyword (+) button
- Name the Keyword, e.g. Place order in Opencart
- Select “Cypress” as the Type
- Upload the Cypress project previously zipped to the Cypress project
- Enter the filename of the Cypress spec to be executed e.g. opencart.cy.js
- Click Save
2.2. Create the Plan
Create a new Plan using the TestScenario template:
- Go to the Plans section
- Click on the New Plan (+) button
- Name the Plan, e.g. Load test OpenCart
- Select “TestScenario” as the Template
- Click Save and edit
2.3. Configure the load test
For our load test, we will create a ThreadGroup that will execute our Keyword (Cypress script) in parallel to simulating the target load.
- In the Controls section of the Component tabs, click on the New ThreadGroup (+) button to add a ThreadGroup child to the Plan.
Hint: Use the filter function in the Component tabs to easily find controls. - Select the previously defined Keyword (Cypress script) from the Keywords section in the Component tabs.
- Configure the ThreadGroup with the following parameters:
- Number of Threads: 10 (to run 10 threads in parallel)
- Number of iterations per thread: (leave empty) (there should not be a limit on the number of iterations per thread)
- Maximum duration (ms): 600000 (to terminate after a maximum of 10 minutes or 600'000 ms)
- Add a Session control from Controls in the Component tabs. Hint: this forces the creation of a new browser session (and thus clear the cache) at each ThreadGroup iteration.
- Add the Keyword “Place an order in Opencart” from Keywords in the Component tabs.
3. Run and analyze the test
3.1. Run the load test
In Step, click Start Execution and confirm in the opened modal.
3.2. Analyze the results
Once the execution has started, you will be redirected to the execution page.
In the Performance tab, you can explore detailed performance metrics:
There you’ll find all metrics relative to the transactions of your Cypress scripts:
- The execution time of our custom command “Opencart_PlaceOrder”
- The series related to the different Cypress commands called within our custom command (e.g. “visit”, “contains”)
- The total execution time of our Keyword: “Place an order in Opencart”
3.3. Review the transaction statistics
At the bottom of the Performance view, you’ll find an aggregation of performance metrics for the selected time frame:
This tutorial serves as a starting point for those interested in performing load tests using Cypress scripts. Step enables you to reuse automation artifacts across the whole DevOps cycle and load testing is just one aspect of it. Further learning and exploration on performance testing, synthetic monitoring, and robotics can be found in other tutorials and resources.
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