writing-specs

name

writing-specs

description

Author good Ginkgo specs — container nodes (Describe/Context/When), subject nodes (It/Specify), setup/cleanup nodes (BeforeEach, JustBeforeEach, AfterEach, DeferCleanup, BeforeSuite/AfterSuite), the "declare in container, initialize in BeforeEach" rule, separating creation from configuration, reusable test helpers with GinkgoHelper()/GinkgoHelperGo(), and By/GinkgoWriter output. Use when writing or reviewing specs or extracting a test helper. Covers the tree-construction-time pitfalls (no assertions/init/loop-capture in container bodies).

Writing Ginkgo specs

Assumes Ginkgo is wired into the suite (ginkgo:setup) and you know the two-phase model (ginkgo:overview). Docs: https://onsi.github.io/ginkgo/#writing-specs.

The shape of a spec

var _ = Describe("Books", func() {
	var book *books.Book          // declare here...

	BeforeEach(func() {
		book = &books.Book{        // ...initialize here, fresh per spec
			Title:  "Les Miserables",
			Author: "Victor Hugo",
			Pages:  2783,
		}
		Expect(book.IsValid()).To(BeTrue()) // assertions in setup are fine
	})

	Describe("categorizing", func() {
		Context("with more than 300 pages", func() {
			It("is a novel", func() {
				Expect(book.Category()).To(Equal(books.CategoryNovel))
			})
		})
	})
})

• Containers (Describe/Context/When) organize; they're identical — pick the one that reads as a sentence. Subjects (It/Specify) hold the assertions; one spec runs per It.
• The spec's full name is the concatenation of every container text plus the It text — write them to read as a phrase.

The rule that prevents most bugs: declare in container, initialize in setup

Container bodies run once, at tree-construction time (ginkgo:overview). So:

• Declare shared variables in the container body (var book *books.Book).
• Initialize them in BeforeEach so each spec gets a clean copy.

// WRONG — runs once at construction; every spec shares & pollutes one book
var _ = Describe("Books", func() {
	book := &books.Book{Pages: 2783}   // initialized at construction time
	It("mutates", func() { book.Pages = 0 })
	It("expects 2783", func() { Expect(book.Pages).To(Equal(2783)) }) // flaky under randomization
})

The same trap explains: no assertions in container bodies (they fire at construction, with no spec active) and no expensive/stateful work in container bodies. If you see logic directly inside a Describe/Context/When body, it almost always belongs in a BeforeEach.

Setup and cleanup nodes — and their ordering

Node	Runs
BeforeEach	Before each spec, outer→inner. The workhorse.
JustBeforeEach	After all BeforeEaches, just before the It.
JustAfterEach	Just after the It, before any AfterEach.
AfterEach	After each spec, inner→outer (reverse).
BeforeSuite/AfterSuite	Once, around the whole suite (top-level only).
BeforeAll/AfterAll	Once per Ordered container (→ ginkgo:ordering-and-flakes).

JustBeforeEach separates creation from configuration. Let nested BeforeEaches configure inputs into declared variables, and do the single creation step in JustBeforeEach — so each context overrides just the inputs it cares about:

var jsonString string
BeforeEach(func() { jsonString = `{"id":1,"name":"Sally"}` })      // base config
JustBeforeEach(func() { user, err = NewUser(jsonString) })          // creation, runs last
Context("with malformed JSON", func() {
	BeforeEach(func() { jsonString = `{"oops"` })                  // override one input
	It("errors", func() { Expect(err).To(HaveOccurred()) })
})

Use it deliberately — deeply nested JustBeforeEaches get hard to follow.

Cleanup: prefer DeferCleanup, and restore rather than clear

DeferCleanup registers teardown next to the setup that needs it, and runs in LIFO order (like defer). It works in any setup/subject node and adapts to scope (called in BeforeSuite, it cleans up after the suite; in BeforeEach, after the spec):

BeforeEach(func() {
	original := os.Getenv("MODE")
	os.Setenv("MODE", "test")
	DeferCleanup(os.Setenv, "MODE", original) // captured args passed at cleanup time
})

• DeferCleanup accepts func(), func() error (a non-nil error fails the spec), captured arguments, and a func(ctx SpecContext) form (→ ginkgo:timeouts-and-async).
• Restore original state; don't blindly clear it. os.Unsetenv after the test wrongly assumes the var started unset — capture and restore instead (as above).
• DeferCleanup is a function call, not a node — it's the one cleanup mechanism you may use inside setup/subject closures. You may not define nodes (It, BeforeEach, …) inside a running closure.

Output: GinkgoWriter and By

• GinkgoWriter buffers logs and only prints them when a spec fails (or always under -v) — so passing specs stay quiet. Use GinkgoWriter.Printf(...), or GinkgoWriter.TeeTo(w) to also stream live. → ginkgo:debugging-failures.
• By("...") annotates steps in a long spec; the annotations surface on failure (and under -v) to show how far the spec got. It records into the spec's timeline.

It("processes an order", func() {
	By("submitting the cart")
	// ...
	By("charging the card")
	// ...
})

Failures, in brief

A failed Gomega assertion calls Fail, which panics; Ginkgo recovers it, marks the spec failed, and still runs cleanup. So code after a failed assertion in the same closure does not run. Use Skip("reason") to skip a spec at runtime (→ ginkgo:filtering). For failures inside goroutines and async polling, see ginkgo:timeouts-and-async.

Test helpers — keep failure locations honest with GinkgoHelper()

Extract repeated setup or assertions into plain Go functions. The catch: a Fail (or failed Gomega assertion) inside a helper reports the helper's own line — useless for knowing which call failed. Mark the helper with GinkgoHelper() and Ginkgo skips that frame when computing the failure location, pointing at the spec that called it instead:

func expectValidBook(b *books.Book) {
	GinkgoHelper()                    // this frame is ignored in failure locations
	Expect(b).NotTo(BeNil())
	Expect(b.IsValid()).To(BeTrue()) // a failure here is reported at the CALLER
}

It("accepts a good book", func() {
	expectValidBook(book)             // ← failures point here, not inside the helper
})

• GinkgoHelper() composes. Mark every helper in a chain (expectValidBook → expectStorable → …) and the reported location is always the spec that kicked it off.
• Prefer it over the older manual frame-counting: Fail(msg, offset) or the Offset(n) decorator (→ ginkgo:decorators). Those break the moment helpers call helpers (you'd have to bump every offset).

A helper that fails from a goroutine uses GinkgoHelperGo — it runs your code on a new goroutine, already implies defer GinkgoRecover() (→ ginkgo:timeouts-and-async), and gives you a helperFail to use for the helper's own failures (so they still report at the call site); caller-supplied assertions report inline:

func EnsureSprockets(n int, fn func(int)) {
	GinkgoHelper()
	GinkgoHelperGo(func(helperFail func(string, ...int)) { // implies defer GinkgoRecover()
		if n == 0 {
			helperFail("sprockets must not be zero") // reported at the EnsureSprockets call site
		}
		fn(n)                                        // caller's assertions report inline
	})
}

(With Gomega, a helper's own assertions can run through g := gomega.NewGomega(helperFail); g.Expect(...).)

Where to go next

• Parameterize or generate specs → ginkgo:tables-and-dynamic-specs
• Decorate nodes (Serial, Label, timeouts, …) → ginkgo:decorators
• Run and filter what you wrote → ginkgo:running, ginkgo:filtering