General Limitations of the Technical Preview¶
Model-based testing (MBT) is a systemic approach to testing that utilizes models as high-level abstractions of the systems under test. This is a highly anticipated feature and we want to ensure we take our users feedback into account while developing it. This is the reason we release the Model-based testing support now with some known limitations.
We encourage all our users to participate in the MBT Technical Preview Questionaire to provide their feedback how we should best develop the MBT feature further.
Guided recording of missing MBT steps. Recording step implementations for MBT steps currently requires using snippet recording or recording at breakpoints. We plan to have a similar process as the one known from BDD tests to simplify the process of creating the step implementations.
Parametrization of steps. Currently there is no option to use parameters with steps, limiting the ways MBT steps can be used for implementing data-driven tests. We would like to learn more about the tests our users intend to create so we can ensure such a feature benefits their use cases.
Support for activity, state or other diagram types. There is a large variety of existing modelling languages, for example SysML , UML , BPNM , with various different types of models and diagrams. We would like to ensure we work on supporting the ones that are most useful to our users first.
Composite models, models cannot include other models. Many modelling tools and frameworks support nesting of models, to allow for different levels of abstraction. This could be an interesting future feature for Squish's Model-based testing support as well and we would like to hear from our users how they would use this.
Support for generating test cases. Currently, test cases need to be selected manually. We plan to support automatic test case selection in the future, but want to learn more about our user's use-cases first. Examples could be, shortest paths, selection based on model coverage criteria, such as path coverage, or even selection based on past test results or business priority.
User Interface. The model and test case editors for model-based tests in the Squish IDE still have some known issues affecting the UI and user experience. We decided to release this feature nonetheless as the overall workflow to create model-based tests works well and we wanted to ensure to receive user feedback early on.
Generating step implementations fails with Ruby on Windows 11¶
This is due to a general problem on Windows 11 with Ruby, see the corresponding entry in the 7.2.1 known issues page for more details.
Workaround: The step implementation file needs to be written manually. The shared script file (Manage contacts_0.rb) from the example test suites for model-based testing in the Squish installation can be used as a template.