π Venom
Venom is a CLI (Command Line Interface) that aim to create, manage and run your integration tests with efficiency.
Table of content
- Overview
- Installing
- Updating
- Docker image
- CLI usage
- Concepts
- Write and run your first test suite
- Export tests report
- Advanced usage
- FAQ
- Use venom in CI/CD pipelines
- Hacking
- Contributing
- License
Overview
Venom allows you to handle integration tests the same way you code your application. With Venom, testcases will be managed as code: the readability of the tests means that the tests are part of the code reviews. Thanks to that, write and execute testsuites become easier for developers and teams.
Concretely, you have to write testsuite in a YAML file. Venom run executors (scripts, HTTP Request, web, IMAP, etc.) and apply assertions. It can also generate xUnit result files.
Installing
Install from binaries
You can find latest binary release from: https://github.com/ovh/venom/releases/latest/.
Example for Linux:
$ curl https://github.com/ovh/venom/releases/download/v1.1.0/venom.linux-amd64 -L -o /usr/local/bin/venom && chmod +x /usr/local/bin/venom
$ venom -h
Updating
You can update to the latest version with venom update
command:
$ venom update
The venom update
command will download the latest version and replace the current binary:
Url to update venom: https://github.com/ovh/venom/releases/download/v1.1.0/venom.darwin-amd64
Getting latest release from: https://github.com/ovh/venom/releases/download/v1.1.0/venom.darwin-amd64 ...
Update done.
Check the new version with venom version
command:
$ venom version
Version venom: v1.1.0
Docker image
Instead of installing (and updating) Venom locally, Venom can be started as a Docker image with following commands.
Considering your testsuites are in ./tests
directory in your current directory and your test library is under ./tests/lib
, the results will be available under the results
directory.
$ mkdir -p results
$ docker run --mount type=bind,source=$(pwd)/tests,target=/workdir/tests --mount type=bind,source=$(pwd)/results,target=/workdir/results ovhcom/venom:latest
Please refer to https://hub.docker.com/r/ovhcom/venom/tags to get the available image tags.
CLI Usage
venom
CLI is composed of several commands:
$ venom -h
Venom - RUN Integration Tests
Usage:
venom [command]
Available Commands:
help Help about any command
run Run Tests
update Update venom to the latest release version: venom update
version Display Version of venom: venom version
Flags:
-h, --help help for venom
Use "venom [command] --help" for more information about a command.
You can see the help of a command with venom [command] -h
:
$ venom run -h
run integration tests
Usage:
venom run [flags]
Examples:
Run all testsuites containing in files ending with *.yml or *.yaml: venom run
Run a single testsuite: venom run mytestfile.yml
Run a single testsuite and export the result in JSON format in test/ folder: venom run mytestfile.yml --format=json --output-dir=test
Run a single testsuite and export the result in XML and HTML formats in test/ folder: venom run mytestfile.yml --format=xml --output-dir=test --html-report
Run a single testsuite and specify a variable: venom run mytestfile.yml --var="foo=bar"
Run a single testsuite and load all variables from a file: venom run mytestfile.yml --var-from-file variables.yaml
Run all testsuites containing in files ending with *.yml or *.yaml with verbosity: VENOM_VERBOSE=2 venom run
Notice that variables initialized with -var-from-file argument can be overrided with -var argument
More info: https://github.com/ovh/venom
Flags:
--format string --format:json, tap, xml, yaml (default "xml")
-h, --help help for run
--html-report Generate HTML Report
--lib-dir string Lib Directory: can contain user executors. example:/etc/venom/lib:$HOME/venom.d/lib
--output-dir string Output Directory: create tests results file inside this directory
--stop-on-failure Stop running Test Suite on first Test Case failure
--var stringArray --var cds='cds -f config.json' --var cds2='cds -f config.json'
--var-from-file strings --var-from-file filename.yaml --var-from-file filename2.yaml: yaml, must contains a dictionary
-v, --verbose count verbose. -v (INFO level in venom.log file), -vv to very verbose (DEBUG level) and -vvv to very verbose with CPU Profiling
Run test suites in a specific order
venom run 01_foo.yml 02_foo.yml
will run 01 before 02.venom run 02_foo.yml 01_foo.yml
will run 02 before 01.
If you want to sort many testsuite files, you can use standard commands, example:
venom run `find . -type f -name "*.yml"|sort`
Globstar support
The venom
CLI supports globstar:
$ venom run ./foo/b*/**/z*.yml
Variables
To specify individual variables on the command line, use the --var
option when running the venom run
commands:
$ venom run --var="foo=bar"
$ venom run --var='foo_list=["biz","buz"]'
$ venom run --var='foo={"biz":"bar","biz":"barr"}'
The --var
option can be used many times in a single command.
Variable Definitions Files
To set a lot of variables, it is more convenient to specify their values in a variable definitions file. This file is a YAML dictionary. You have to specify that file on the command line with --var-from-file
:
venom run --var-from-file variables.yaml
Environment Variables
As a fallback for the other ways of defining variables, venom
tool searches the environment of its own process for environment variables named VENOM_VAR_
followed by the name of a declared variable.
$ export VENOM_VAR_foo=bar
$ venom run *.yml
You can also define the environment variable and run your testsuite in one line:
$ VENOM_VAR_foo=bar venom run *.yml
Arguments
You can define arguments on the command line using the flag name.
Flags are listed in the result of help command.
List of available flags for venom run
command:
Flags:
--format string --format:json, tap, xml, yaml (default "xml")
-h, --help help for run
--html-report Generate HTML Report
--lib-dir string Lib Directory: can contain user executors. example:/etc/venom/lib:$HOME/venom.d/lib
--output-dir string Output Directory: create tests results file inside this directory
--stop-on-failure Stop running Test Suite on first Test Case failure
--var stringArray --var cds='cds -f config.json' --var cds2='cds -f config.json'
--var-from-file strings --var-from-file filename.yaml --var-from-file filename2.yaml: yaml, must contains a dictionary
-v, --verbose count verbose. -vv to very verbose and -vvv to very verbose with CPU Profiling
Define arguments with environment variables
You can also define the arguments with environment variables:
# is the same as
VENOM_FORMAT=json venom run my-test-suite.yml
# is equivalent to
venom run my-test-suite.yml --format=json
Flags and their equivalent with environment variables usage:
--format="json"
flag is equivalent toVENOM_FORMAT="json"
environment variable--lib-dir="/etc/venom/lib:$HOME/venom.d/lib"
flag is equivalent toVENOM_LIB_DIR="/etc/venom/lib"
environment variable--output-dir="test-results"
flag is equivalent toVENOM_OUTPUT_DIR="test-results"
environment variable--stop-on-failure
flag is equivalent toVENOM_STOP_ON_FAILURE=true
environment variable--var foo=bar
flag is equivalent toVENOM_VAR_foo='bar'
environment variable--var-from-file fileA.yml fileB.yml
flag is equivalent toVENOM_VAR_FROM_FILE="fileA.yml fileB.yml"
environment variable-v
flag is equivalent toVENOM_VERBOSE=1
environment variable-vv
flag is equivalent toVENOM_VERBOSE=2
environment variable
It is possible to set NO_COLOR=1
environment variable to disable colors from output.
Use a configuration file
You can define the Venom settings using a configuration file .venomrc
. This configuration file should be placed in the current directory or in the home
directory.
variables:
- foo=bar
variables_files:
- my_var_file.yaml
stop_on_failure: true
format: xml
output_dir: output
lib_dir: lib
verbosity: 3
Please note that the command line flags overrides the configuration file. The configuration file overrides the environment variables.
Concepts
TestSuites
A test suite is a collection of test cases that are intended to be used to test a software program to show that it has a specified set of behaviors. A test case is a specification of the inputs, execution conditions, testing procedure, and expected results that define a single test to be executed to achieve a particular software testing objective, such as to exercise a particular program path or to verify compliance with a specific requirement.
In venom
the testcases are executed sequentially within a testsuite. Each testcase is an ordered set of steps. Each step is based on an executor
that enable some specific kind of behavior.
In venom
a testsuite is written in one YAML
file respecting the following structure:
name: Title of TestSuite
testcases:
- name: TestCase with default value, exec cmd. Check if exit code != 1
steps:
- script: echo 'foo'
type: exec
- name: Title of First TestCase
steps:
- script: echo 'foo'
assertions:
- result.code ShouldEqual 0
- script: echo 'bar'
assertions:
- result.systemout ShouldNotContainSubstring foo
- result.timeseconds ShouldBeLessThan 1
- name: GET http testcase, with 5 seconds timeout
steps:
- type: http
method: GET
url: https://eu.api.ovh.com/1.0/
timeout: 5
assertions:
- result.body ShouldContainSubstring /dedicated/server
- result.body ShouldContainSubstring /ipLoadbalancing
- result.statuscode ShouldEqual 200
- result.timeseconds ShouldBeLessThan 1
- name: Test with retries and delay in seconds between each try
steps:
- type: http
method: GET
url: https://eu.api.ovh.com/1.0/
retry: 3
retry_if: # (optional, lets you early break unrecoverable errors)
- result.statuscode ShouldNotEqual 403
delay: 2
assertions:
- result.statuscode ShouldEqual 200
Executors
- amqp: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/amqp
- dbfixtures: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/dbfixtures
- exec: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/exec
exec
is the default type for a step - grpc: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/grpc
- http: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/http
- imap: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/imap
- kafka https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/kafka
- mqtt https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/mqtt
- odbc: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/plugins/odbc
- ovhapi: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/ovhapi
- rabbitmq: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/rabbitmq
- readfile: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/readfile
- redis: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/redis
- smtp: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/smtp
- sql: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/sql
- ssh: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/ssh
- web: https://github.com/ovh/venom/tree/master/executors/web
User defined executors
You can define an executor with a single YAML file. This is a good way to abstract technical or functional behaviors and reuse them in complex testsuites.
Example:
file lib/customA.yml
:
executor: hello
input:
myarg: {}
steps:
- script: echo "{\"hello\":\"{{.input.myarg}}\"}"
assertions:
- result.code ShouldEqual 0
vars:
hello:
from: result.systemoutjson.hello
all:
from: result.systemoutjson
output:
display:
hello: "{{.hello}}"
all: "{{.all}}"
file testsuite.yml
:
name: testsuite with a user executor
testcases:
- name: testA
steps:
- type: hello
myarg: World
assertions:
- result.display.hello ShouldContainSubstring World
- result.alljson.hello ShouldContainSubstring World
Notice the variable alljson
. All variables declared in output are automatically converted in a json format with the suffix json
. In the example above, two implicit variables are available: displayjson.hello
and alljson
.
Venom will load user's executors from the directory lib/
relative to the testsuite path. You add executors source path using the flag --lib-dir
.
Note that all folders listed with --lib-dir
will be scanned recursively to find .yml
files as user executors.
The user defined executors work with templating, you can check the templating result in venom.log
. In this file, if you see an error as error converting YAML to JSON: yaml: line 14: found unexpected end of stream
, you probably need to adjust indentation with the templating function indent
.
Example:
name: testsuite with a user executor multilines
testcases:
- name: test
steps:
- type: multilines
script: |
# test multilines
echo "5"
assertions:
- result.alljson ShouldEqual 5
using this executor:
executor: multilines
input:
script: "echo 'foo'"
steps:
- type: exec
script: {{ .input.script | nindent 4 }}
assertions:
- result.code ShouldEqual 0
vars:
all:
from: result.systemoutjson
output:
all: '{{.all}}'
# lib/*.yml files will be loaded as executors.
$ venom run testsuite.yml
# executors will be loaded from /etc/venom/lib, $HOME/venom.d/lib and lib/ directory relative to testsuite.yml file.
$ venom run --lib-dir=/etc/venom/lib:$HOME/venom.d/lib testsuite.yml
Variables
Testsuite variables
You can define variables at the testsuite
level.
name: myTestSuite
vars:
foo: foo
biz:
bar: bar
aString: '{"foo": "bar"}'
testcases:
- name: first-test-case
steps:
- type: exec
script: echo '{{.foo}} {{.biz.bar}}'
assertions:
- result.code ShouldEqual 0
- result.systemout ShouldEqual "foo bar"
- name: foobar
steps:
- script: echo '{{.aString}}'
info: value of aString is {{.aString}}
assertions:
- result.systemoutjson.foo ShouldEqual bar
...
Each user variable used in testsuite must be declared in this section. You can override its value at runtime in a number of ways:
- Individually, with the
--var
command line option. - In variable definitions files, either specified on the command line
--var-from-file
. - As environment variables.
Variable helpers
Available helpers and some examples:
abbrev
abbrevboth
trunc
trim
upper
: {{.myvar | upper}}lower
: {{.myvar | lower}}title
untitle
substr
repeat
trimall
trimAll
trimSuffix
trimPrefix
nospace
initials
randAlphaNum
randAlpha
randASCII
randNumeric
swapcase
shuffle
snakecase
camelcase
quote
squote
indent
nindent
replace
: {{.myvar | replace "_" "."}}plural
default
: {{.myvar | default ""}}empty
coalesce
toJSON
toPrettyJSON
b64enc
b64dec
{{.result.bodyjson | b64enc}}escape
: replace β_β, β/β, β.β by β-β
More examples are available here
Use outputs from a test step as input of another test step
To be able to reuse a property from a teststep in a following testcase or step, you have to extract the variable, as the following example.
After the first step execution, venom
extracts a value using a regular expression foo with a ([a-z]+) here
from the content of the result.systemout
property returned by the executor
.
Then this variable can be reused in another test, with the name testA.myvariable
with testA
corresponding to the name of the testcase. A default value could also be supplied if the variable can't be extracted from the output, which can commonly happen when parsing json output.
name: MyTestSuite
testcases:
- name: testA
steps:
- type: exec
script: echo 'foo with a bar here'
vars:
myvariable:
from: result.systemout
regex: foo with a ([a-z]+) here
default: "somevalue"
- name: testB
steps:
- type: exec
script: echo {{.testA.myvariable}}
assertions:
- result.code ShouldEqual 0
- result.systemout ShouldContainSubstring bar
Builtin venom variables
name: MyTestSuite
testcases:
- name: testA
steps:
- type: exec
script: echo '{{.venom.testsuite}} {{.venom.testsuite.filename}} {{.venom.testcase}} {{.venom.teststep.number}} {{.venom.datetime}} {{.venom.timestamp}}'
# will display something as: MyTestSuite MyTestSuiteWithVenomBuiltinVar.yml testA 0 2018-08-05T21:38:24+02:00 1533497904
Builtin variables:
- {{.venom.datetime}}
- {{.venom.executable}}
- {{.venom.libdir}}
- {{.venom.outputdir}}
- {{.venom.testcase}}
- {{.venom.teststep.number}}
- {{.venom.testsuite.name}}
- {{.venom.testsuite.filename}}
- {{.venom.testsuite.filepath}}
- {{.venom.testsuite.shortName}}
- {{.venom.testsuite.workdir}}
- {{.venom.testsuite}}
- {{.venom.timestamp}}
Assertions
Keywords
- ShouldEqual - example
- ShouldNotEqual - example
- ShouldAlmostEqual - example
- ShouldNotAlmostEqual - example
- ShouldBeNil - example
- ShouldNotBeNil - example
- ShouldBeTrue - example
- ShouldBeFalse - example
- ShouldBeZeroValue - example
- ShouldBeGreaterThan - example
- ShouldBeGreaterThanOrEqualTo - example
- ShouldBeLessThan - example
- ShouldBeLessThanOrEqualTo - example
- ShouldBeBetween - example
- ShouldNotBeBetween - example
- ShouldBeBetweenOrEqual - example
- ShouldNotBeBetweenOrEqual - example
- ShouldContain - example
- ShouldNotContain - example
- ShouldContainKey - example
- ShouldNotContainKey - example
- ShouldBeIn - example
- ShouldNotBeIn - example
- ShouldBeEmpty - example
- ShouldNotBeEmpty - example
- ShouldHaveLength - example
- ShouldStartWith - example
- ShouldNotStartWith - example
- ShouldEndWith - example
- ShouldNotEndWith - example
- ShouldBeBlank - example
- ShouldNotBeBlank - example
- ShouldContainSubstring - example
- ShouldNotContainSubstring - example
- ShouldEqualTrimSpace - example
- ShouldNotExist - example
- ShouldHappenBefore - example
- ShouldHappenOnOrBefore - example
- ShouldHappenAfter - example
- ShouldHappenOnOrAfter - example
- ShouldHappenBetween - example
- ShouldTimeEqual - example
- ShouldMatchRegex - example
Must
keywords
All the above assertions keywords also have a Must
counterpart which can be used to create a required passing assertion and prevent test cases (and custom executors) to run remaining steps.
Example:
- steps:
- type: exec
script: exit 1
assertions:
- result.code MustEqual 0
# Remaining steps in this context will not be executed
Using logical operators
While assertions use and
operator implicitly, it is possible to use other logical operators to perform complex assertions.
Supported operators are and
, or
and xor
.
- name: Assertions operators
steps:
- script: echo 1
assertions:
- or:
- result.systemoutjson ShouldEqual 1
- result.systemoutjson ShouldEqual 2
# Nested operators
- or:
- result.systemoutjson ShouldBeGreaterThanOrEqualTo 1
- result.systemoutjson ShouldBeLessThanOrEqualTo 1
- or:
- result.systemoutjson ShouldEqual 1
More examples are available in tests/assertions_operators.yml
.
Write and run your first test suite
To understand how Venom is working, let's create and run a first testsuite together.
The first assertions that we will do, in this testsuite, are to check whether the site we want to test (a public REST API, OVHcloud API for example):
- is accessible (respond with a 200 status code)
- responds in less than 5 seconds
- returns a valid response (which is in JSON format)
First, create your testsuite in a file called testsuite.yml
for example.
Open it in your favorite editor or IDE and fill it with this content:
name: APIIntegrationTest
vars:
url: https://eu.api.ovh.com/
testcases:
- name: GET http testcase, with 5 seconds timeout
steps:
- type: http
method: GET
url: {{.url}}/1.0/
timeout: 5
assertions:
- result.statuscode ShouldEqual 200
- result.timeseconds ShouldBeLessThan 1
- result.bodyjson ShouldContainKey apis
- result.body ShouldContainSubstring /dedicated/server
- result.body ShouldContainSubstring /ipLoadbalancing
Then, run your testsuite with the following command:
$ venom run
β’ APIIntegrationTest (testsuite.yml)
β’ GET-http-testcase-with-5-seconds-timeout SUCCESS
You wrote and executed your first testsuite with the HTTP executor! :)
Export tests report
You can export your testsuite results as a report in several available formats: xUnit (XML), JSON, YAML, TAP.
You can specify the output directory with the --output-dir
flag and the format with the --format
flag (XML by default):
$ venom run --format=xml --output-dir="."
# html export
$ venom run --output-dir="." --html-report
Reports exported in XML can be visualized with a xUnit/jUnit Viewer, directly in your favorite CI/CD stack for example in order to see results run after run.
Advanced usage
Debug your testsuites
A venom.log file is generated for each venom run
command.
There are two ways to debug a testsuite:
- use
-v
flag on venom binary.$ venom run -v test.yml
will output details for each step$ venom run -vv test.yml
will generate dump.json files for each teststep.$ venom run -vvv test.yml
will generate pprof files for CPU profiling.
- use
info
keyword in your teststep:test.yml
file:
name: Exec testsuite
testcases:
- name: testA
steps:
- type: exec
script: echo 'foo with a bar here'
info:
- this a first info
- and a second...
- name: cat json
steps:
- script: cat exec/testa.json
info: "the value of result.systemoutjson is {{.result.systemoutjson}}"
assertions:
- result.systemoutjson.foo ShouldContainSubstrin bar
$ venom run test.yml
# output:
β’ Exec testsuite (exec.yml)
β’ testA SUCCESS
[info] this a first info (exec.yml:8)
[info] and a second... (exec.yml:9)
β’ testB SUCCESS
β’ sleep 1 SUCCESS
β’ cat json SUCCESS
[info] the value of result.systemoutjson is map[foo:bar] (exec.yml:34)
Skip testcase and teststeps
It is possible to skip testcase
according to some assertions
. For instance, the following example will skip the last testcase.
name: "Skip testsuite"
vars:
foo: bar
testcases:
- name: init
steps:
- type: exec
script: echo {{.foo}}
assertions:
- result.code ShouldEqual 0
- result.systemout ShouldContainSubstring bar
- name: do-not-skip-this
skip:
- foo ShouldNotBeEmpty
steps:
- type: exec
script: exit 0
- name: skip-this
skip:
- foo ShouldBeEmpty
steps:
- type: exec
script: command_not_found
assertions:
- result.code ShouldEqual 0
A skip
statement may also be placed at steps level to partially execute a testcase.
If all steps from a testcase are skipped, the testcase itself will also be treated as "skipped" rather than "passed"/"failed".
name: "Skip testsuite"
vars:
foo: bar
testcases:
- name: skip-one-of-these
steps:
- name: do-not-skip-this
type: exec
script: exit 0
assertions:
- result.code ShouldEqual 0
skip:
- foo ShouldNotBeEmpty
- name: skip-this
type: exec
script: exit 1
assertions:
- result.code ShouldEqual 0
skip:
- foo ShouldBeEmpty
Iterating over data
It is possible to iterate over data using range
attribute.
The following data types are supported, each exposing contexted variables .index
, .key
and .value
:
- An array where each value will be iterated over (
[]interface{}
).index
/.key
: current iteration index.value
: current iteration item value
- A map where each key will be iterated over (
map[string]interface{}
).index
: current iteration index.key
: current iteration item key.value
: current iteration item value
- An integer to perform target step
n
times (int
).index
/.key
/.value
: current iteration index
- A templated string which results in one of the above typing (
string
)- It can be either inherited from vars file, or interpolated from a previous step result
For instance, the following example will iterate over an array of two items containing maps:
- name: range with hardcoded array
steps:
- type: exec
range:
- actual: hello
expected: hello
- actual: world
expected: world
script: echo "{{.value.actual}}"
assertions:
- result.code ShouldEqual 0
- result.systemout ShouldEqual "{{.value.expected}}"
More examples are available in tests/ranged.yml
.
FAQ
Common errors with quotes
If you have this kind of error:
err:unable to parse file "foo.yaml": error converting YAML to JSON: yaml: line 8: did not find expected key
this is probably because you try to use a json value instead of a string. You should have more details in venom.log
file.
Wrong:
...
vars:
body: >-
{
"the-attribute": "the-value"
}
...
steps:
- type: http
body: "{{.body}}"
...
OK:
...
vars:
body: >-
{
"the-attribute": "the-value"
}
...
steps:
- type: http
body: '{{.body}}'
...
Note the simple quote on the value of body
.
Use venom in CI/CD pipelines
Venom can be used in dev environment or on your CI server.
To display properly the venom output, you probably will have to export the environment variable IS_TTY=true
before running venom.
Hacking
How to write your own executor?
How to compile?
$ make build
How to test?
Unit tests:
make test
Integration tests:
Prepare the stack:
make build OS=linux ARCH=amd64
cp dist/venom.linux-amd64 tests/venom
cd tests
make start-test-stack # (wait a few seconds)
make build-test-binary-docker
Run integration tests:
make run-test
Cleanup:
make clean
make stop-test-stack
Contributing
Please read the contributing guide to learn about how you can contribute to Venom ;-). There is no small contribution, don't hesitate!
Our awesome contributors:
License
Copyright 2022 OVH SAS
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.