Cypress Study Notes

Assertions with should() and expect()

Learn the difference between Cypress's retrying should()/and() assertions and Chai's one-time expect() assertions, and when to use each.

Building an E2E Test Suite for a Real App

A step-by-step approach to designing, implementing, and running a Cypress end-to-end test suite for a realistic e-commerce-style application.

Chaining and Retry-ability

Understand how Cypress commands chain together via the command queue and how built-in retry-ability makes assertions resilient to asynchronous UI changes.

Component Testing

Understand how Cypress Component Testing mounts individual UI components in a real browser for fast, isolated, high-fidelity assertions.

Custom Commands

Learn how to extend Cypress with Cypress.Commands.add() to create reusable custom commands like cy.login(), reducing duplication across tests.

Cypress Architecture: Why It's Different

A deeper look at the two-process architecture behind Cypress, how the Node server and browser driver work together, and the trade-offs that result.

Cypress Best Practices

A practical guide to writing Cypress tests that are fast, resilient to UI changes, and free of the flakiness that erodes trust in a test suite.

Cypress in CI/CD Pipelines

Learn how to run Cypress tests reliably inside continuous integration pipelines, from headless execution to artifact collection and secret management.

Cypress Interview Questions

A curated set of commonly asked Cypress interview questions spanning fundamentals, architecture, and real-world troubleshooting scenarios.

Cypress Quick Reference

A condensed reference of the most-used Cypress commands, assertions, network mocking patterns, and configuration options for day-to-day test writing.

Cypress vs Selenium vs Playwright

A technical comparison of the three major browser automation tools, covering architecture, language support, speed, and when each is the right choice.

Debugging Cypress Tests

Learn the practical toolkit for debugging failing or flaky Cypress tests — from time-travel debugging and the Command Log to browser DevTools and cy.debug().

Environment Variables and Configuration

Learn how Cypress resolves environment variables across config files, OS variables, and the CLI, and how fixtures supply deterministic test data.

Fixtures for Test Data

Learn how Cypress fixtures store reusable static test data as JSON files and how to load them into stubs, requests, and assertions.

Handling Authentication in Tests

Learn how to bypass slow UI logins with programmatic authentication and cy.session() caching, and how to handle third-party SSO safely.

Installing Cypress and Project Setup

How to add Cypress to a JavaScript project, understand the folder structure it scaffolds, and configure it for your app.

Interacting with Elements (type, click, check)

Cover Cypress's core interaction commands — type(), click(), check(), select() — and the actionability checks Cypress performs before firing each one.

Intercepting Network Requests with cy.intercept()

Learn how cy.intercept() lets Cypress observe, wait on, and control the XHR and fetch traffic your application sends during a test run.

Parallelization and Cypress Cloud

Understand how Cypress Cloud distributes specs across parallel CI machines using load balancing, and how to interpret parallelization results.

Plugins and the Plugins File

Understand Cypress's Node-side plugin system via setupNodeEvents, how to hook into the test lifecycle, and common plugin use cases.

Retries and Flake Reduction

Learn how Cypress's built-in retry-ability and test-level retries work, and practical techniques for reducing flaky end-to-end tests.

Selecting Elements with cy.get()

Learn how Cypress's cy.get() command queries the DOM using CSS selectors, and how to choose selectors that are stable, readable, and resistant to markup change…

Stubbing and Mocking API Responses

Learn how to replace real backend responses with controlled, static or dynamic data using cy.intercept() to test UI states reliably.

Testing API Endpoints Directly with cy.request()

Learn how cy.request() lets Cypress make direct HTTP calls outside the browser to set up state, verify APIs, and speed up tests.