Quick Start - GitHub Actions
Quick Start - how to use Diffblue Cover to write tests in GitHub Actions CI
This guide explains how to use Diffblue Cover to write tests in GitHub Actions CI. This guide assumes that you have:
- A Maven or Gradle project that:
- Compiles
- Does not have non-compiling or failing tests
- Is stored in a GitHub repository that has GitHub Actions enabled
- A basic understanding of GitHub Actions
- The ability to add secrets to your GitHub project
To integrate Diffblue Cover into your CI pipeline, we will guide you through creating a workflow file that:
- 1.Builds your project
- 2.Downloads and activates Diffblue Cover CLI
- 3.Runs Diffblue Cover to create tests
- 4.Commits the created tests to a branch
The following sections provide more details for each of the above steps.
Add a new workflow to your GitHub project, this is done by creating a new YAML file in the “.github/workflows” directory. Make sure to check, and if necessary modify, the command to build your project. Running the project’s tests is not required, and you will save time by skipping them, but they do need to compile and pass.
name: Cover
on:
# Allow the workflow to be triggered manually using the GitHub API, CLI, or browser interface
workflow_dispatch:
# Trigger the workflow automatically on pushes to master
push:
branches: [master]
concurrency:
# Only allow one run of the workflow per branch to run at a time
group: ${{ github.ref }}
cancel-in-progress: true
jobs:
Test:
runs-on: ubuntu-22.04
env:
JVM_ARGS: -Xmx4096m
steps:
- name: Checkout repository
uses: actions/checkout@v3
with:
fetch-depth: 0
- name: Compile project
run: mvn --batch-mode --no-transfer-progress clean install -DskipTests"
You need to give the CI run access to the Diffblue Cover files and activate the
dcover license in order to write tests.This guide assumes that you have a URL with the Diffblue Cover CLI release zip and the license key for online activation during the CI run. See Installation. If your license allows it you may wish to install Diffblue Cover with offline activation. See Licensing.
Add a repository secret with the name
DIFFBLUE_COVER_URL and set the value to the URL of the Diffblue Cover CLI release zip file. Then add a second repository secret with the name DIFFBLUE_COVER_LICENSE_KEY and set the value to your Diffblue Cover license key.Append the code for getting, unzipping and activating
dcover to your workflow file.- name: Download Diffblue Cover
run: |
mkdir -p "$RUNNER_TEMP/dcover"
cd "$RUNNER_TEMP/dcover"
curl --silent --show-error --location --output "diffblue-cover-cli.zip" "${{ secrets.DIFFBLUE_COVER_URL }}"
unzip -q "diffblue-cover-cli.zip"
rm -f "diffblue-cover-cli.zip"
echo "$RUNNER_TEMP/dcover" >> "$GITHUB_PATH"
- name: Activate Diffblue Cover
run: dcover activate "${{ secrets.DIFFBLUE_COVER_LICENSE_KEY }}"
This will put the Diffblue Cover files into the
dcover directory in the root of the workspace. The Diffblue Cover files contain a script to invoke dcover which has the relative path dcover/dcover (or dcover\dcover.bat in Windows environments). Add this to your path so that you can call Diffblue Cover as dcover (or dcover.bat).Push the changes so this workflow runs - ensure that you can see the successful activation of
dcover in your "Activate Diffblue Cover" step before moving on. You will see a line starting with "Successfully activated key" if this was successful. If your Diffblue Cover did not successfully activate, please see the Licensing or contact Diffblue Support.Now that Diffblue Cover is running in GitHub Actions, you can use it to write tests. The next two sections show how to write tests for a single module, and then how to extend this to all modules.
Choose a module to test in your project. Append the following to your workflow file, changing
moduleToTest to a module in your project or, if your project does not have modules, --working-directory moduleToTest can be removed or changed to --working-directory .. Note that the --batch option makes the output more suitable for CI, as it ensures the CI logs are not cluttered with progress bar output. - name: Create tests for single module
run: dcover create --working-directory "moduleToTest" --batch
dcover create --working-directory "moduleToTest" --batch
Push the changes so this workflow runs. Once successfully complete, you should expect to see output that looks like this in your "Create tests for single module" step:
INFO Found 7 callable methods in 2 classes
INFO
INFO Creating tests:
INFO ---------------
...
INFO All 5 created tests were successfully validated.
If you don't see this output, the call may need small modification for your project or dependencies adding until it works. The output gives you warnings along the way to guide you. See CLI Commands for more information.
Depending on the size of your module/project, creating tests could take a while. You may wish to restrict test creation to a single class by specifying its fully qualified name:
dcover create com.somepackage.SomeClass --working-directory "moduleToTest" --batch
To write tests for all the modules, you can use a loop as follows:
- name: Create unit tests on each module
run: |
for MODULE in module_name_1 module_name_2 module_name_3
do
dcover create --batch --working-directory "$MODULE"
done
To see these new tests in the GitHub project you'll need to commit them and push back to the repository. You'll need to configure Git credentials to commit. This can be achieved using a community action.
- name: Setup Git Credentials
uses: fregante/setup-git-user@v2
To commit the tests append the following to your workflow file. This will check for any changes to Diffblue tests, add them to a commit and push to your branch.
- name: Stage, commit and push unit tests
run: |
if [ -n "$(git status --short **/*DiffblueTest.java)" ]; then
git add **/*DiffblueTest.java
git commit --message "Update Unit Tests for $GITHUB_SHA"
git push --set-upstream origin
else
echo "Nothing to commit"
fi
Please note - be careful not to create an infinite CI loop here. By using the provided GitHub account and credentials GitHub Actions will skip running on commits it created. If you choose to use a dedicated service account however, we recommend checking the author of each commit to ensure you are not creating tests for a commit authored by your Diffblue service account.
Last modified 23d ago