Configuration¶

behat.yml¶

All configuration happens inside a single configuration file in the YAML format. Behat tries to load behat.yml or config/behat.yml by default, or you can tell Behat where your config file is with the --config option:

$ behat --config custom-config.yml

All configuration parameters in that file are defined under a profile name root (default: for example). A profile is just a custom name you can use to quickly switch testing configuration by using the --profile option when executing your feature suite.

The default profile is always default. All other profiles inherit parameters from the default profile. If you only need one profile, define all of your parameters under the default: root:

# behat.yml
default:
    #...

Overriding default params¶

Each profile is an extension of the default profile. This means you can define a new profile that overrides configuration parameters defined in the default profile.

Let’s assume we have a default profile as such:

# behat.yml
default:
    suites:
        default:
            filters:
                tags: "@runthisonlyondefault"

Now we want a profile that changes the tag which is to be run in the default suite. We can add the profile and just override:

# behat.yml
default:
    suites:
        default:
            filters:
                tags: "@runthisonlyondefault"

profile1:
    suites:
        default:
            filters:
                tags: "@runthisonlyonprofile1"

Or maybe we want to unset the tag filter for a profile:

# behat.yml
default:
    suites:
        default:
            filters:
                tags: "@runthisonlyondefault"

profile1:
    suites:
        default:
            filters: ~

Environment Variable - BEHAT_PARAMS¶

If you want to set up configurable Behat settings, use the BEHAT_PARAMS environment variable:

export BEHAT_PARAMS='{"extensions" : {"Behat\\MinkExtension" : {"base_url" : "https://www.example.com/"}}}'

You can set any value for any option that is available in a behat.yml file. Just provide options in JSON format. Behat will use those options as defaults. You can always override them with the settings in the project behat.yml file (it has higher priority).

Global Filters¶

While it is possible to specify filters as part of suite configuration, sometimes you will want to exclude certain scenarios across the suite, with the option to override the filters at the command line.

This is achieved by specifying the filter in the gherkin configuration:

# behat.yml

default:
    gherkin:
        filters:
            tags: [email protected]

In this instance, scenarios tagged as @wip will be ignored unless the CLI command is run with a custom filter, e.g.:

vendor/bin/behat --tags=wip

Custom Autoloading¶

Sometimes you will need to place your features folder somewhere other than the default location (e.g. app/features). All you need to do is specify the path you want to autoload via behat.yml:

# behat.yml

default:
    autoload:
        '': %paths.base%/app/features/bootstrap

If you wish to namespace your features (for example: to be PSR-1 compliant) you will need to add the namespace to the classes and also tell behat where to load them. Here contexts is an array of classes:

# behat.yml

default:
    autoload:
        '': %paths.base%/app/features/bootstrap
    suites:
        default:
            contexts: [My\Application\Namespace\Bootstrap\FeatureContext]

Formatters¶

Default formatters can be enabled by specifying them in the profile.

# behat.yml

default:
    formatters:
        pretty: true

Extensions¶

Extensions can be configured like this:

# behat.yml

default:
    extensions:
        Behat\MinkExtension:
            base_url: http://www.example.com
            selenium2: ~