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Cucumber & BDD cheatsheet

A one-page reference for Cucumber/BDD. For the full walkthrough and anti-patterns, see the complete guide.

📖 Full guide: Cucumber & BDD →

Gherkin syntax​

Feature: Login
  Scenario: Valid credentials
    Given I am on the login page
    When I enter valid credentials
    And I click "Sign in"
    Then I should see the dashboard

Step definitions​

@Given("I am on the login page")
public void onLoginPage() {
    driver.get("/login");
}

@When("I enter valid credentials")
public void enterValidCreds() {
    loginPage.login("abhishek", "secret123");
}

Data tables​

Scenario: Create multiple users
  Given the following users exist:
    | name  | role  |
    | Alice | admin |
    | Bob   | user  |
@Given("the following users exist:")
public void createUsers(DataTable table) {
    List<Map<String,String>> rows = table.asMaps();
}

Scenario Outline​

Scenario Outline: Login attempts
  When I login as "<user>" with "<pass>"
  Then I see "<result>"

  Examples:
    | user  | pass   | result  |
    | admin | right  | success |
    | admin | wrong  | error   |

Hooks​

@Before
public void setup() { driver = new ChromeDriver(); }

@After
public void teardown(Scenario s) {
    if (s.isFailed()) captureScreenshot();
    driver.quit();
}

@Before("@tag") / @After("@tag") scope hooks to tagged scenarios only.

Tags​

@smoke @regression
Scenario: Critical path
mvn test -Dcucumber.filter.tags="@smoke and not @wip"

Common anti-patterns​

  • Imperative steps ("click button at x,y") instead of declarative ("I log in") — couples feature files to UI details.
  • One giant step definition class instead of composable, reusable steps.
  • Using Gherkin for pure technical/unit tests — BDD's value is business-readable specs, not a syntax tax on every test.
See: Common Anti-Patterns