Laravel-BDD-CI featuring Behat and Travis-CI

A starter kit for Laravel 5 BDD with support for Travis-CI

I'm assuming you have a github account and a Travis-CI account linked to it.

Given that, it is safe to assume you know more or less how to configure your local development environment. Perhaps you've even installed Composer:

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

...then added the Laravel installer to your global composer requirements:

composer global require "laravel/installer=~1.1"

This tutorial will not cover configuring your local development environment, though the steps listed here should not impede any choice you may make in that regard.

I strongly recommend using Laravel Homestead for your local development.

You will also need Git installed locally, I hope that's obvious at this point.

Windows users please note: I'm not going to re-write the whole article just for you, therefore I also recommend Git Bash so you can enter shell commands in a sane manner whilst running Microsoft Corporation's Windows Operating System™. Here's a bonus Windows ProTip; lest you think I dislike you.

Travis-CI is free for public repositories. Private repositories must pay, though services that support private repos at no charge do exist.

Now...breathe deeply and proceed.

How to build it

Either

You could clone/fork this repository, sync your repos with travis-ci and activate it.

Or

In terminal:

install Laravel ~5.0.1 laravel new blog
cd blog
create a decent .gitignore file like this one to replace the minimal one in the project root.
git init
mv .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate
touch behat.yml .travis.yml .env.behat
edit composer.json to add "minimum-stability": "dev" right before the closing brace.

Additionally edit your "require-dev": to look like this:

"require-dev": {
    "phpunit/phpunit": "~4.4.5",
    "phpspec/phpspec": "~2.1",
    "behat/behat": "~3.0@dev",
    "behat/mink": "~1.7@dev",
    "behat/mink-extension": "~2.0@dev",
    "laracasts/behat-laravel-extension": "dev-master#205a3d2",
    "laracasts/testdummy": "dev-master#44807c5"
  },

Again in the terminal:

composer install
vendor/bin/behat --init
git add .

Edit config/database.php so that:

'default' => 'mysql', becomes 'default' => env('DB_TYPE', 'sqlite')
and 'database' => storage_path().'/database.sqlite', says 'database' => storage_path(env('SQLITE_DB', 'database.sqlite')),
Now add DB_TYPE=mysql to .env
.env.behat will be excluded from git, if you used my .gitignore, and you should add to it:

APP_ENV=acceptance
APP_DEBUG=true

DB_TYPE=sqlite
SQLITE_DB=acceptance.sqlite

CACHE_DRIVER=file
SESSION_DRIVER=file

Then in Terminal: cp .env.behat .env.behat.travis

Add this to your behat.yml:

default:
  extensions:
    Laracasts\Behat\ServiceContainer\BehatExtension: ~
    Behat\MinkExtension\ServiceContainer\MinkExtension:
      default_session: laravel
      laravel: ~

Edit .travis.yml to read:

language: php
php:
  - 5.6
sudo: false
before_script:
  # setup mysql (to test production) , and sqlite (for behat acceptance)
  # update composer,
  # then grab the packages,
  # chmod storage
  # migrate and seed db
  - mv .env.behat.travis .env.behat
  - chmod -R 777 storage
  - touch storage/acceptance.sqlite
  - composer self-update
  - composer install --prefer-source
  - php artisan key:generate
  #- npm install - if you want to use gulp/elixir
script:
  # Run them tests, y'all
  #- gulp # if you are running 'npm install' in before_script
  - phpunit tests/
  - vendor/bin/phpspec run -v
  - vendor/bin/behat --config behat.yml

Configure phpec.yml like so:

suites:
    main:
        namespace: App
        psr4_prefix: App
        src_path: app
        spec_prefix: spec

Add four use lines to features/bootstrap/FeatureContext.php :

use Behat\MinkExtension\Context\MinkContext;
use Laracasts\Behat\Context\Migrator;
use \Laracasts\Behat\Context\DatabaseTransactions;
use PHPUnit_Framework_Assert as PHPUnit;

Now run:

git remote add origin https://github.com/your-username/repo-name.git
git commit -m "initial commit"
git push -u origin master

Finally:

Go to Travis-CI, synchronize your repositories, and turn this one on!

You have now configured PHPUnit, PhpSpec, Behat, and Travis-CI for use with your Laravel application. This configuration will also allow different environments to remain de-coupled from a specific RDBMS through the addition of DB_TYPE and SQLITE_DB .env variables. Perhaps more importantly, you are now fully-equipped to do Story and Spec BDD, and you have automated Continuous Integration via Travis-CI.

Next; filling in the blanks with practice tests.

defenestrator/Laravel-BDD-CI

Laravel-BDD-CI featuring Behat and Travis-CI

How to build it

Either

Or

Finally: