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Contributing to Stoplight Elements

Table Of Contents

Intro

Elements is an open-source project, and Stoplight loves contributions. If you're familiar with TypeScript and Jest then dive right in, see how far you can get, and post in Discussions or start a draft PR if you get stuck.

Install Elements

Before you start development, you have to install Elements and its dependencies.

Make sure you have Node.js version 16 or higher installed. Consider using nvm to manage different versions of Node.js on your computer.

For dependencies, use yarn. Install it, following the guideline.

Clone elements repository by running git clone git@github.com:stoplightio/elements.git (provided you have SSH keys added in GitHub).

Next, move into the repository by running cd elements.

Now run yarn to install dependencies.

To validate that the installation was successful, move into the demo folder by running cd demo and run yarn start. You should see a demo website, under the address http://localhost:4025.

Develop Elements

Elements is split into three packages. Two of them, elements and elements-dev-portal, are user-facing. The third, elements-core, is an implementation detail created to share code and components between elements and elements-dev-portal.

Most of the code is in elements-core; elements and elements-dev-portal only have code that's highly specific to those projects.

Most often, you'll develop Elements (in all the packages) using storybooks.

Each package has its own storybook. To run a storybook for a specific package, in the main directory run, for example, yarn elements-core storybook. This starts a storybook for the elements-core package.

Now you can develop the code and test your changes in the storybook.

For your convenience, all the packages are linked. For example, if you run the elements storybook, but make changes in the elements-core codebase, those changes will be visible instantly in your storybook.

Testing

Guiding Principles

The aim should never be to write tests for the sake of writing tests.

For Stoplight, the goal of testing is to give developers confidence when making changes to the codebase when they're adding new features, cleaning up tech debt, or fixing bugs.

Well-written tests also save time when authoring or reviewing PRs as you don't have to run through hundreds of test cases manually to verify everything still works as intended. On the other hand, badly written tests that depend on the implementation need to be changed any time the implementation changes, causing frustration and unnecessary work, while barely adding any value.

To achieve high-quality tests, follow these principles:

  • Always test the behavior of a component, not the implementation.

    • Tests that use Jest snapshots almost always violate this. (Except maybe when you are testing an AST parser, a linter, or similar.)

    Instead, extract the real business requirement from what would be the snapshot and assert against that.

    • Tests that find child components and assert against props being passed may be incorrect. Use the recommended selectors (see point below) and jest-dom assertions to enforce constraints that matter to the user.
    • Searching for DOM elements using tag name, CSS class, or hierarchy (parentElement, etc.) is an anti-pattern.

    Instead, use findByRole or other queries from TL's query hierarchy. Feel free to add accessibility attributes where missing. With a bit of practice, you'll see that almost everything can be covered with *byRole.

  • The goal for your test suite is to cover as much of the business requirements (for example, in the issue description) as practical.

  • An ideal test suite only requires a change if business requirements change.

  • While not expected, it's OK to add additional tests for helper functions, hooks, and sub-components where it would not be practical to test them alongside their host components. In this case, try to follow the principles above as much as practical.

  • Use Jest/JSDOM testing wherever suitable. Cypress-based tests should be reserved for high-level integration tests, such as:

    • Basic checks to make sure that Elements builds and loads correctly in a certain environment.
    • Make sure the routers/navigation of the external framework works well with Stoplight's internal router.

Unit tests

Each public-facing component should be covered by unit tests. Take a sensible approach to testing and don't worship the coverage indicator but make sure that every notable feature is covered exhaustively.

When you add a new component, implement a changing functional requirement, or fix a bug, you are expected to also deliver one or more tests that cover the feature being added/modified.

Unit testing stack:

  • Jest
  • JSDOM
  • React Testing Library
  • Jest-DOM
  • * You can find some legacy code utilizing a different stack (Enzyme). When changing those tests, use your judgment to decide between amending the old unit test or rewriting it using the new stack. Mixing testing libraries in a single test file is fine.

Unit tests are currently located in a directory __tests__ close to the component being tested, but in the future, tests will be located right next to the components under test, with a .spec.ts extension.

Run Unit Tests

Assuming you work on the elements package, you can run jest on it using the shorthand

yarn elements test

There is no need to build Elements beforehand, the test runs on the currently saved TypeScript code. Make sure to install dependencies, however. (yarn)

Any arguments you append after the command are forwarded to jest. Some useful combinations:

# Show the result of each individual test case
yarn elements test --verbose
# Only run tests related to files changed since the last commit.
yarn elements test -o
# Keep running the tests whenever you change a source or test file. Implies `-o` by default.
yarn elements test --watch
# Run the test(s) whose name matches the argument regex
yarn elements test -t Test\ Name

Framework Integration

Framework integration tests are set up to make sure Elements builds and loads correctly using any of the supported frameworks. Even though these tests aren't fully end-to-end, they're referred to as end-to-end (e2e) tests. This is mainly because Cypress, a traditionally end-to-end test runner, is used to run them.

The logical steps in which these tests are run:

  1. Build Elements from the current TypeScript source.
  2. Copy the contents of the predefined example project from examples to examples-dev. For example, copy examples/angular to examples-dev/angular
  3. Install the Elements build from the first step into the chosen example project in examples-dev (you modify package.json to point to the dist folder of elements-core, elements or elements-dev-portal)
  4. Serve the example from the examples-dev project on localhost over HTTP port 4200
  5. Run the Cypress test suite against this example application.

You don't need to amend e2e tests when working on Elements unless you are adding a new supported framework. These tests are run by the CI pipeline to ensure that a PR doesn't break any environments. That being said, if you for some reason want to run them by hand, here's how to do so:

Note: Unlike Jest tests, FI tests simulate real-world integration scenarios and therefore require Elements to be built before testing.

Run Tests as the CI Would

# Make sure top-level dependencies are up-to-date
yarn 
# Build Elements itself
yarn build
# Copy the contents of the predefined example application and make it use the local build
yarn copy:react-cra
# Build the chosen example (sub `react-cra` for any other example repo)
yarn build:react-cra
# Run the example and the test suite against it
yarn e2e:run:react-cra

Note: You only need to run yarn copy:$INTEGRATION-NAME once after you clone the Elements repo.

Run the Tests Manually

This is useful for either working on the tests or debugging failures.

The first three steps are the same, but this time, instead of running the tests in headless mode, run them manually using the Cypress console.

# Make sure top-level dependencies are up-to-date
yarn 
# Build Elements itself
yarn build
# Copy the contents of the predefined example application and make it use the local build
yarn copy:react-cra
# Build the chosen example (sub `react-cra` for any other example repo)
yarn build:react-cra
# Run the example on port 4200. This is going to block so (unless you '&' it) or you'll need another terminal for the next step.
yarn serve:react-cra
# Open the Cypress console
yarn e2e:open

Note: You only need to run yarn copy:$INTEGRATION-NAME once after you clone the Elements repo.

With the console open, select any test suite to run it visually. Check Cypress Docs for more details about the Test Runner.

Don't forget that while Cypress hot-reloads on test code change, it needs a complete rebuild for Elements changes. There is no way around this for now. You won't hit this limitation often, but in case you do, one trick that may speed things up a bit is to substitute yarn build:react-cra && yarn serve:react-cra with cd examples/react-cra; yarn start.

Edit the Tests

The tests are located under cypress/integration and utilize the same principles as the unit tests. Fixtures, Cypress plugins, and support files can also be found in the relevant folder under cypress.

Inspect Test Results

Test results can be found under the cypress/results directory. Cypress records videos of every test suite run and takes screenshots for every failure. In addition, a machine-readable and human-readable output.xml is generated that contains a summary of the results.

When running in CircleCI, the host interprets output.xml and displays it visually on the dashboard: screenshot

Videos - and in case of failure, screenshots - can be found under the Artifacts tab. screenshot

Yalc into platform-internal

Elements is used in the Stoplight Platform, as well as in open source projects. Here is how you (if you are a Stoplight employee) can test integrating Elements locally:

  1. Inside of elements root directory, run yarn build then cd packages/elements-core/dist then yalc publish
  2. Copy the yalc published version output to terminal @stoplight/elements-core@7.2.0
  3. Go to packages/ninja, run yalc add @stoplight/elements-core@7.2.0 and yarn install --check-files

Release Elements

  1. Make sure you are in the root directory of this repo and on the main branch.
  2. Pull all the latest changes.
  3. Create a new branch. The name doesn't matter, but here's an example: chore/release.
  4. Run yarn version. You are asked a few questions.
    • Don't release elements-demo. You have to choose "Custom Version" and enter the same, old version by hand. Awkward, but it works.
    • For other packages, choose the proposed version (patch or minor update) from the console. Remember to read the versioning guidelines.
  5. After the script gets finalized, a commit is created for you.
  6. IMPORTANT: If elements-core version was updated in elements and/or elements-dev-portal, the script has changed ~ sign to ^ in front of elements-core version. Change it back to ~ in both places manually and make a new commit. The commit message doesn't matter here; something like fix: ^ to ~ for elements-core is more than enough.
  7. Now make a push, create a PR and ask someone for a review. The purpose of the review is to make sure the release obeys the versioning guidelines.

Versioning Guidelines

If you made changes only in the elements package, it's okay to release only the elements package.

If you made changes only in the elements-dev-portal package, it's okay to release only the elements-dev-portal package.

If you made changes in elements-core, this means that all three packages should be released.

If it's difficult to figure out what changes happened since the last release, there is never any harm in releasing all the packages. This won't cause any issues, but releasing only elements and not releasing elements-core can cause serious errors.

Major versions

If you think a major version bump is required in any elements package, please consult a member of the Stoplight team.

Minor versions

Minor versions in elements and elements-dev-portal are for introducing new features. If any change that's being released introduces a new feature / somehow extends the functionality, bump the minor.

In the case of elements-core (and in contrast with two other packages), minors are allowed to have (within reason) some breaking changes. That's because it's an internal package that Stoplight controls.

If you need to make a breaking change in elements-core, make sure to bump minor and make sure that the new versions of elements and elements-dev-portal are using this new version and are compatible with it. Remember also that elements is used in internal Stoplight platform code, so make sure that the new version also works correctly there.

Because breaking changes in elements-core are allowed, elements and elements-dev-portal package.json files use ~ sign instead of a typical ^ sign. This ensures that those packages install only patch updates until the elements-core version is explicitly bumped in package.json.

Patches

In all three packages, patch bumps are primarily for bug fixes.

Merge into Main

To merge your changes into main you must create a PR for your changes and then have those changes approved by a member of the stoplight elements-owner team.

To do this simply create a pull request merging your branch into main. Once your changes are complete, ensure all build checks are successfully passing, fill out the pull request template, and assign elements-owner as the reviewer.

While Stoplight tries to be as responsive as possible, it can take several days to review requests. Stoplight prioritizes new issues and requests each sprint and handles them as capacity allows. If it has been over 2 weeks since your request, add a comment mentioning the @elements-owners to send a friendly reminder.