Open Source Project of the Week: Cypress

What is the Cypress open source project?

An all-in-one suite for building end-to-end testing in JavaScript, Cypress simplifies the testing process. By making the testing process straightforward, Cypress makes it easy to start doing test-driven development.

Who’s running the Cypress open source project?

The team at Cypress.io knows that testing sucks. Oftentimes, building a successful test is harder than building a successful feature. Most end-to-end testing tools are built on Selenium, which is why they tend to have the same issues. So, the Cypress team built a new testing architecture from scratch to help make the process easier and more efficient.

Cypress open source project goals

By enabling developers to easily write and debug tests, run them in real-time alongside a web application build, review results, and get aggregated insights, Cypress makes it more straightforward and efficient to integrate end-to-end testing than ever. And since it’s a specialized end-to-end tool, rather than a general automation framework or unit testing framework for backend services, all its features are geared towards that end.

See Zenhub at work

One of the greatest advantages of working in open source — being able to draw on a whole community — is also one of its greatest challenges. Having so many contributors and repositories makes it difficult to keep track of them all.

That’s where Zenhub comes in. Organizations like Cypress use labels to make it easier to sort information at a high level. Labels such as ‘type:’ and ‘stage’ help contributors and leaders see key information at a glance.

Cypress also uses epics in Zenhub to group multiple related issues into one place, so they’re handled as part of a larger project.

By customizing their pipelines, the Cypress team manages information flows, such as requests for additional information: they get sorted into their own column, making them easier to track.

By including multiple repositories in one board, they’re able to keep each separated for development purposes, but together for project management. This way, they don’t get conflated on the developer side, but nothing gets left behind either.

Why you should contribute

Testing is one of the most tedious, but necessary parts of coding. This is why Cypress is so committed to producing a testing process that is not only actually functional but makes it easier and faster to do. Applications are only as good as their testing process, so by investing in making testing better, Cypress and its contributors are empowering the next generation of applications. And as an open source project, Cypress is dedicated to an open ecosystem where tests work independently, always, which is something we can get on board with!

Where you can learn more

To learn more about the Cypress project and get involved, check out:

• Cypress in a nutshell
• Cypress-io GitHub
• Download the Zenhub browser extension to view Cypress’ Zenhub board
• How Cypress is different

Zenhub offers the tools and workflows that agile teams working on open source projects in GitHub need. It puts core open source collaboration principles like openness and transparency into practice, enabling projects and organizations to code in the open. It’s the only industry tool that lets you manage your team’s work across both public and private repos. And it makes it easier for all team members to communicate with each other, set goals, plan with more transparency and participation, and ship releases more predictably. Get a free 14-day trial.

Want to start an open source project like Cypress.io? Learn about open source project management here.