Detox (E2E) test automation

How to run Detox tests with codemagic.yaml

Detox testing refers to end-to-end (E2E) testing for React Native apps using the Detox framework. Detox provides a gray box testing solution, meaning it runs tests on a real device or emulator while also accessing the app’s internal state for better synchronization.

Prerequisites

1. A React Native project
2. npm/yarn are pre-installed
3. Xcode for iOS and Android Studio for Android are pre-installed
4. homebrew is pre-installed

Preparing the application

Adjust your project’s package.json file with Detox before starting Codemagic configurations:

  "detox": {
    "runnerConfig": "e2e/config.json",
    "configurations": {
      "ios.sim.release": {
        "type": "ios.simulator",
        "device": {
          "type": "iPhone 14"
        },
        "binaryPath": "ios/build/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/MyReactNativeApp.app",
        "build": "xcodebuild -workspace ios/YOUR_APP.xcworkspace -scheme YOUR_APP -configuration Debug -sdk iphonesimulator -derivedDataPath ios/build"

      },
    }
  }

More information about Detox environment setup can be found in the official documentation here.

Running Detox tests in Codemagic

We are going to add all the scripts we need to run to install additional software and execute Detox tests to the scripts section of codemagic.yaml.

1. Install Detox CLI tools and applesimutils which is required by Detox to work with iOS simulators:

npm install detox-cli --global
brew tap wix/brew
brew install applesimutils

2. Build and run Detox tests:

detox build --configuration ios.sim.release
detox test --configuration ios.sim.release

Here is how your codemagic.yaml should look like:

workflows:
  detox-test:
    name: Detox test automation
    environment:
      node: latest
      xcode: latest
    scripts:
      - name: Install Detox CLI tools
        script: npm install detox-cli --global
      - name: Install applesimutils
        script: |
          brew tap wix/brew
          brew install applesimutils          
      - name: Build Detox app
        script: detox build --configuration ios.sim.release
      - name: Execute Detox testing
        script: detox test --configuration ios.sim.release

To run this workflow automatically in response to events in the repository, you can additionally configure automatic build triggering.