Table Of ContentTest Automation Engineering
Handbook
Learn and implement techniques for building robust test
automation frameworks
Manikandan Sambamurthy
BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI
Test Automation Engineering Handbook
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To my late mother, Gomathy, whose unconditional love inspires me to always do my best. To my dad,
wife, children, and sisters, whose support gives me the confidence to complete this work.
– Manikandan Sambamurthy
Contributors
About the author
Manikandan Sambamurthy has been a software engineer, particularly focused on quality engineering,
for over 15 years. He has helped several enterprise organizations formulate and implement their test
strategies successfully. He has built and mentored diverse and smooth-functioning quality engineering
teams throughout his career. Manikandan is a prolific tester and specializes in full stack test automation. He
is a lifelong learner and possesses tremendous knowledge of both frontend and backend test technologies.
He has led various continuous improvement efforts to improve the quality and productivity of entire
software engineering teams. With his deep understanding and expertise in the quality domain, he has
saved considerable costs across organizations through meticulous customizations of test automation
frameworks.
I would like to thank my wife and two children, who have supported me throughout the process of
writing this book. Sincere thanks to the tremendously helpful team at Packt for getting this book to
completion. I would also like to thank the technical reviewers for all their valuable feedback.
About the reviewers
Ayesha Janvekar is an IT professional based in San Diego, California. She is currently working as
a software development manager with more than 9 years of hands-on QA experience. Ayesha is an
experienced IT leader and is passionate about software testing. She has a bachelor’s degree in electronics
and communication engineering, an MBA in marketing and international business, and a master’s
in information technology and management from Chicago. She believes in translating her work into
actionable insights. Having strong project management skills and business acumen, Ayesha helps
deliver pragmatic technical solutions.
Meir Blachman, an Israeli Jew, completed a bachelor’s degree in computer science after high school.
In 2014, he joined the Israeli army and served in the 8200 unit for 5.5 years. Meir started his service
as an automation engineer and introducing teams to web automation, and transitioned to backend
engineering focusing on CI/CD tooling and automation around the development team components. In
2019, he started working for Microsoft on the Cloud App Security group, specifically on the Conditional
Access App Control product. During this time, Meir learned how the web works, and specifically
browsers, involving the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript standards and how browsers process this content.
He has also invented multiple patents through Microsoft.
Chris Wallander is the principal SDET and test automation architect at TaxAct and has over 10 years
of experience in test automation and quality assurance, as well as a solid foundation in DevOps and
Agile methodologies. Trained and certified through the International Software Testing Qualification
Board, his focus is on analyzing enterprise systems, and then building test automation frameworks to
support them. Outside of work, he enjoys developing and testing video games, AI/ML development,
building robots, and smithing medieval armor.
Table of Contents
Preface xiii
Part 1: The Basics
1
Introduction to Test Automation 3
Getting familiar with software testing 3 Test automation challenges 12
Knowing the importance of testing 4 Finding and handling regression bugs 13
Tasks involved in testing 4 Test automation metrics 13
Testing in an world 5 Exploring the roles in quality
Defect management in testing 6 engineering 15
Shift-Right and Shift-Left propositions 7
Test automation engineer 15
Quality and DevOps 7
SDET 16
Challenges in testing 8
Familiarizing yourself with common
Test early, test often 8
terminologies and definitions 17
Understanding test automation 9
Summary 19
Agile test automation 11
Questions 20
2
Test Automation Strategy 21
Technical requirements 21 Test automation environment 24
Knowing your test Implementing an Agile
test automation strategy 26
automation strategy 22
Reporting the test results 28
Test automation objectives 22
Gathering management support 23 Devising a good test
Defining the scope of test automation 24 automation strategy 29
viii Table of Contents
Selecting the right tools and training 29 Structuring the test cycles 37
Standards of the test automation framework 30
Familiarizing ourselves with
Testing in the cloud 34
common design patterns 37
Understanding the test pyramid 35 Using design patterns in test automation 37
Unit/component tests 35
Summary 42
Integration/API tests 36
Questions 42
E2E/System/UI tests 36
3
Common Tools and Frameworks 43
Technical requirements 43 JMeter 63
The basic tools for every AXE 65
automation engineer 43
Choosing the right tool/framework 66
The CLI 44
Selecting a performance testing tool 66
Git 49
Selecting an API testing tool 67
Common test automation Selecting a web testing tool 67
frameworks 56 Mobile 68
Common considerations 68
Selenium 57
Appium 60 Summary 69
Cypress 62
Questions 69
Part 2: Practical Affairs
4
Getting Started with the Basics 73
Technical requirements 73 Downloading and setting up VS Code 82
Getting more familiar with Git 74 Introduction to JavaScript 84
Committing a change 74 Why learn JavaScript? 84
Resolving merge conflicts 77 Running a JavaScript program 84
Additional Git commands 80 JavaScript basics 85
Using an IDE 81 Summary 101
Choosing an IDE 81 Questions 101
Table of Contents ix
5
Test Automation for Web 103
Technical requirements 103 Working with selectors 116
Why Cypress? 104 Asserting on selectors 117
Installing and setting up Cypress 104 Intercepting API calls 119
Creating your first test in Cypress 109 Additional configurations 120
Creating arrow functions in JavaScript 109 Considerations for web automation 121
Creating callback functions in JavaScript 110 Limitations of Cypress 121
Writing our first spec 112 Web automation considerations 122
Becoming familiar with the spec structure 112
Summary 122
Executing our first spec 113
Questions 123
Employing selectors and assertions 116
6
Test Automation for Mobile 125
Technical requirements 125 Writing our first mobile test 138
Getting to know Appium 126 JavaScript functions with async/await 138
What is Appium? 126 First Appium/WebdriverIO test 140
Advantages of using Appium 126 Key considerations for mobile
Knowing WebdriverIO and automation 141
its advantages 127 Areas of complexity 141
Setting up Appium and iOS-specific considerations 142
WebdriverIO 127
Optimizing our mobile
Appium installation 127 automation framework 144
Configuring an Android emulator 129 Summary 146
Configuring WebdriverIO with Appium 132
Questions 146
WebdriverIO Android configuration 134
Appium Inspector installation
and configuration 136
