A First Look at Nightwatch v2.0

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Background

Nightwatch was published at the beginning of 2014 and was created as a complete and integrated framework which would enable engineers to write end-to-end tests quickly and without headaches. While writing it, we were guided by the belief that writing and running automated UI tests should be a straightforward and pleasant task, and should require as little configuration and maintenance as possible.

The task of interacting with browser internals was already handled by the Selenium project and working with the Selenium server via an HTTP based api was a straightforward task. And so Nightwatch was born by bringing together various existing tools and techniques into one easy-to-use integrated solution.

Seven years later, the open-source testing space for Node.js looks quite different. Several new frameworks appeared over the past few years, each of which is bringing their own set of capabilities to the table and their own interpretation over how automated testing should be done.

Meanwhile, the Selenium json-wire protocol has transition into the W3C Webdriver standard which is now implemented by all major browsers. As far as Nightwatch is concerned, the strategy hasn’t changed that much. In fact, I personally am even more confident to say that, as an open-source project, Nightwatch has now entered the next major phase in its development and maturity.

The strategy for Nightwatch still remains that we should build the solution using tried-and-tested existing tools and techniques in the automation space instead of going our separate way. The Selenium project (which also includes Webdriver) has been around for more than a decade and has consistently refined and evolved how browser automation works, both on local development environments but also at scale, on large distributed cloud infrastructures. That’s why working in collaboration with the Selenium ecosystem makes me confident to say that Nightwatch will not only deliver on its promises but will even surpass expectations.

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