Behastan - Modern Static analysis for Behat tests

Find unused and duplicated definitions easily – without running Behat tests.

Install

composer require rector/behastan --dev

Usage

vendor/bin/behastan analyse tests

Do you want to skip some rule? You can:

vendor/bin/behastan analyse tests --skip=<rule-identifier>

# e.g.
vendor/bin/behastan analyse tests --skip=duplicated-contents

Here are the available rules:

1. Find duplicated definitions contents (duplicated-contents)

Some definitions have similar patterns, even identical contents:

use Behat\Step\When;

#[When('load a user profile')]
public function loadAUserProfile()
{
    $this->loadRoute('/user-profile');
}

#[When('load user profile')]
public function loadUserProfile()
{
    $this->loadRoute('/user-profile');
}

Better use a one definition with single pattern, to make your tests more precise and easier to maintain.

2. Find duplicated patterns (duplicated-patterns)

Same as services, there should be unique definition patterns:

use Behat\Step\When;

#[When('load homepage')]
public function loadUserProfile()
{
    $this->loadRoute('/homepage');
}

#[When('load homepage')]
public function loadUserProfile()
{
    $this->loadRoute('/homepage/default');
}

Make them unique with different behavior, or merge them and use one definition instead.

3. Find unused definitions (unused-definitions)

Behat uses @When(), @Then() and @Given() annotations or attributes to define a class method that is called in *.feature files. Sometimes test change and lines from *.feature files are deleted. But what about definitions?

# some *.feature file
 Scenario: Load admin dashboard
-  When load admin dashboard
+  When load homepage

↓

use Behat\Step\When;

#[When('load admin dashboard')]
public function loadAdminDashboard()
{
    $this->loadRoute('/admin/dashboard');
}

This rule spots definitions that are no longer needed, so you can remove them.

4. Find duplicate scenario titles (duplicate-scenario-titles)

In Behat, each scenario should have a unique name to ensure clarity and avoid confusion during test execution and later debugging. This rule identifies scenarios that share the same name within your feature files:

Feature: User Authentication

    Scenario: User logs in successfully
        When the user enters valid credentials
        Then login should be successful

    Scenario: User logs in successfully
        When the user enters invalid credentials
        Then an error message should be displayed

Protip: Add this command to your CI, to get instant feedback of any changes in every pull-request.

That's it!

Happy coding!