cucumber Gherkin Syntax Tags

Example

For the purposes of documentation, you may want to filter test plans or scenarios by categories. Developers may want to run tests based on those same categories. Gherkin allows you to categorize Features as well as individual Scenarios via the user of Tags. In the example below, notice the above the Feature keyword is the Tag "@Automation". Gherkin recognizes this as a tag by the user of the "@" symbol. In this example, the engineer wants to make it clear that these tests are used for automation, where not every test is automate-able, some tests must be done by manual QA.

Notice as well that the tag @Production has been added to the scenario testing user lock out. In this example, this is because this scenario is only active in the production environment of the application. The developers don't want their sandbox accounts locked out during development. This tags allows them to enforce that this test will only be ran against the production environment.

Lastly, the Scenario Outline has the tag @Staging. For the purposes of this example, this is because the accounts being used are staging accounts and will not working in the other environments. Like the @Production tag, this ensures that these tests will only be ran in the Staging environment.

These are just a few examples of where, how, and why you might use tags. Ultimately these tags are going to have meaning to you and the developers and can be anything and used to categorize however you see fit.

@Automation
Feature: Product Login
    As a user, I would like to be able to use my credentials to successfully 
    login. 
    
    Rules:
    - The user must have a valid username
    - The user must have a valid password
    - The user must have an active subscription 
    - User is locked out after 3 invalid attempts
    - User will get a generic error message following 
      login attempt with invalid credentials 

    Background: The user starts out on the login page
        Given the user is on the login page

    Scenario: The user successfully logs in with valid credentials 
        This scenario tests that a user is able to successfully login
        provided they enter a valid username, valid password, and 
        currently have an active subscription on their account. 

        When the user signs in with "valid" credentials
        Then the user should be logged in

    Scenario: The user attempts to log in with invalid credentials 
        This scenario tests that a user is not able to log in when
        they enter invalid credentials

        When the user signs in with "invalid" credentials
        Then the user should be logged in

    @Production
    Scenario: The user is locked out after too many failed attempts
        This scenario validates that the user is locked out
        of their account after failing three consecutive 
        attempts to log in

        When the fails to log in 3 times
        Then the user should be locked out of their account

    @Staging
    Scenario Outline: The user successfully logs in with their account
         This scenario outlines tests in which various users attempt
         to sign in successfully 

         When the user enters their <username>
         And the user enters their <password>
         Then the user should be successfully logged on

         Examples:
         | username | password |
         | frank    | 1234     |
         | jack     | 4321     |