Gherkin lint

Uses Gherkin to parse feature files and runs linting against the default rules, and the optional rules you specified in your .gherkin-lintrc file.

Installation

npm install gherkin-lint

Demo

To see the output for all the errors that the linter can detect run:

git clone https://github.com/vsiakka/gherkin-lint.git
npm run demo

Or check this:

Available rules

Name	Functionality
no-tags-on-backgrounds *	Disallows tags on Background
one-feature-per-file *	Disallows multiple Feature definitions in the same file
up-to-one-background-per-file *	Disallows multiple Background definition in the same file
no-multiline-steps *	Disallows mutiline Steps
no-examples-in-scenarios	Disallow the use of "Examples" in scenarios
allowed-tags	Just the listed tags are allowed
no-restricted-patterns	A list of patterns to disallow globally, or specifically in features, backgrounds, scenarios, or scenario outlines
indentation	Allows the user to specify indentation rules
max-scenarios-per-file	Allows the user to specify the max number of scenarios per feature file
name-length	Allows restricting length of Feature/Scenario/Step names
new-line-at-eof	Disallows/enforces new line at EOF
no-background-only-scenario	Disallows background when there is just one scenario
no-dupe-feature-names	Disallows duplicate Feature names
no-dupe-scenario-names	Disallows duplicate Scenario names
no-duplicate-tags	Disallows duplicate tags on the same Feature or Scenario
no-empty-background	Disallows features with backgrounds without steps
no-empty-file	Disallows empty feature files
no-files-without-scenarios	Disallows files with no scenarios
no-homogenous-tags	Disallows tags present on every Scenario in a Feature, rather than on the Feature itself
no-multiple-empty-lines	Disallows multiple empty lines
no-partially-commented-tag-lines	Disallows partially commented tag lines
no-restricted-tags	Disallow use of particular @tags
no-scenario-outlines-without-examples	Disallows scenario outlines without examples
no-superfluous-tags	Disallows tags present on a Feature and a Scenario in that Feature
no-trailing-spaces	Disallows trailing spaces
no-unnamed-features	Disallows empty Feature name
no-unnamed-scenarios	Disallows empty Scenario name
no-unused-variables	Disallows unused variables in scenario outlines
scenario-size	Allows restricting the maximum number of steps in a scenario, scenario outline and background
one-space-between-tags	Tags on the same time must be separated by a single space
use-and	Disallows repeated step names requiring use of And instead

* These rules cannot be turned off because they detect undocumented cucumber functionality that causes the gherkin parser to crash.

Rule Configuration

The not-configurable rules are turned on by default and cannot be turned off. Configurable rules can be customized using a file.

The configurable rules are off by default. To turn them on, you will need to create a json file, where you specify the name of each rule and its desired state (which can be "on" or "off"). Eg:

{
  "no-unnamed-features": "on"
}

will turn on the no-unnamed-features rule.

allowed-tags

allowed-tags must be configured with list of tags for it to have any effect:

{
  "allowed-tags": ["on", {"tags": ["@watch", "@wip", "@todo"]}]
}

Any tag not included in this list won't be allowed.

no-restricted-patterns

no-restricted-patterns is a list of exact or partial patterns whose matches are dissallowed in feature name and description, and in background, scenario and scenario outline name, description and steps. All patterns are treated as case insensitive. The rule can be configured like this:

{
  "no-restricted-patterns": ["on", {[
    "Global": {
      "^globally restricted pattern"
    },
    "Feature": {
      "poor description",
      "validate",
      "verify"
    },
    "Background": {
      "show last response",
      "a debugging step"
    },
    "Scenario": {
      "show last response",
      "a debugging step"
    }
  ]}]
}

Notes:

• Step keywords Given, When, Then and And should not be included in the patterns.
• Description violations always get reported in the Feature/Scenario/etc definition line. This is due to the parsed gherkin tree not having information about which line the description appears.

indentation

indentation can be configured in a more granular level and uses following rules by default:

• Expected indentation for Feature, Background, Scenario, Examples heading: 0 spaces
• Expected indentation for Steps and each example: 2 spaces

You can override the defaults for indentation like this:

{
  "indentation" : [
    "on", {
      "Feature": 0,
      "Background": 0,
      "Scenario": 0,
      "Step": 2,
      "Examples": 0,
      "example": 2,
      "given": 2,
      "when": 2,
      "then": 2,
      "and": 2,
      "but": 2,
      "feature tag": 0,
      "scenario tag": 0
    }
  ]
}

There is no need to override all the defaults, as is done above, instead they can be overriden only where required. Step will be used as a fallback if the keyword of the step, eg. 'given', is not specified. If feature tag is not set then Feature is used as a fallback, and if scenario tag is not set then Scenario is used as a fallback.

This feature is able to handle all localizations of the gherkin steps.

max-scenarios-per-file

max-scenarios-per-file rule can be configured to set the number of max scenarios per file. The configuration looks like this:

{
  "max-scenarios-per-file": {"on", {"maxScenarios": 10}}
}

The default value is 10.

name-length

name-length can be configured separately for Feature, Scenario and Step names. The default is 70 characters for each of these:

{
  "name-length" : ["on", { "Feature": 70, "Scenario": 70, "Step": 70 }]
}

new-line-at-eof

new-line-at-eof can be configured to enforce or disallow new lines at EOF.

• To enforce new lines at EOF:

{
  "new-line-at-eof": ["on", "yes"]
}

• To disallow new lines at EOF:

{
  "new-line-at-eof": ["on", "no"]
}

no-dupe-scenario-names

no-dupe-scenario-names can be configured to search for duplicates in each individual feature or amongst all feature files. To enable searching for duplicates in each individual feature (same scenario name in different features won't raise an error) you need to configure the rule like this:

{
  "no-dupe-scenario-names": ["on", "in-feature"]
}

The default case is testing against all the features (same scenario name in different features will raise an error). To get that behavor use the following configuration:

{
  "no-dupe-scenario-names": "on"
}

or

{
  "no-dupe-scenario-names": ["on", "anywhere"]
}

no-restricted-tags

no-restricted-tags should be configured with the list of restricted tags:

{
  "no-restricted-tags": ["on", {"tags": ["@watch", "@wip", "@todo"]}]
}

scenario-size

scenario-size lets you specify a maximum step length for scenarios and backgrounds. The Scenario configuration applies to both scenarios and scenario outlines:

{
  "scenario-size": ["on", { "steps-length": { "Background": 15, "Scenario": 15 }}]
}

Configuration File

The default name for the configuration file is .gherkin-lintrc and it's expected to be in your working directory.

If you are using a file with a different name or a file in a different folder, you will need to specify the -c or --config option and pass in the relative path to your configuration file. Eg: gherkin-lint -c path/to/configuration/file.extention

You can find an example configuration file, that turns on all of the rules in the root of this repo (.gherkin-lintrc).

Ignoring Feature Files

There are 2 ways you can specify files that the linter should ignore:

1. Add a .gherkin-lintignore file in your working directory and specify one glob pattern per file line
2. Use the command line option-i or --ignore, pass in a comma separated list of glob patterns. If specified, the command line option will override the .gherkin-lintignore file.

Custom rules

You can specify one more more custom rules directories by using the -r or --rulesdir command line option. Rules in the given directories will be available additionally to the default rules.

Example:

gherkin-lint --rulesdir "/path/to/my/rulesdir" --rulesdir "from/cwd/rulesdir"

Paths can either be absolute or relative to the current working directory. Have a look at the src/rules/ directory for examples; The no-empty-file rule is a good example to start with.