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Fixtures

Fixtures are Scout’s reusable building blocks for authentication, clients, data setup, and shared helpers. They’re similar in spirit to FTR services, but follow Playwright’s fixture model.

kbnClient and browserAuth are some popular fixtures:

import { tags } from '@kbn/scout';
import { test } from '../fixtures';

test.describe('My suite', { tag: tags.deploymentAgnostic }, () => {
  test.beforeAll(async ({ kbnClient }) => {
    await kbnClient.importExport.load('path/to/archive');
  });

  test.beforeEach(async ({ browserAuth }) => {
    await browserAuth.loginAsViewer();
  });
});

The example uses beforeAll for worker-scoped setup (kbnClient) and beforeEach for test-scoped setup (browserAuth)—this pattern matches fixture availability (see Fixture scope).

  • Worker-scoped fixtures live for the lifetime of a Playwright worker.
  • Test-scoped fixtures are created per test.
Note

Scope affects where a fixture is available: worker-scoped fixtures work in beforeAll, beforeEach, the test body, afterEach, and afterAll; test-scoped fixtures only in beforeEach, the test body, and afterEach (not in beforeAll or afterAll, since Playwright creates a new page/context per test).

Scout exposes different fixture sets depending on the entrypoint you import.

  • Worker-scoped: log, config, kbnUrl, kbnClient, esClient, esArchiver, uiSettings, apiServices, samlAuth (plus optional synthtrace clients)
  • Test-scoped: browserAuth, page (Scout-extended), pageObjects, perfTracker
  • Worker-scoped: log, config, kbnUrl, kbnClient, esClient, apiServices, samlAuth, scoutSpace (one Space per worker)
  • Test-scoped: browserAuth, page (Scout-extended), pageObjects
  • Worker-scoped: log, config, kbnUrl, kbnClient, esClient, esArchiver, apiClient, apiServices, samlAuth, requestAuth
  • Test-scoped: browser fixtures like page/context are disabled (API tests are HTTP-only)
Note

Availability varies by test type (UI vs API). When in doubt, rely on editor autocomplete for the fixture list available in your test.

  1. Add fixture folders

    Add fixtures under your test tree:

    • UI fixtures: <plugin-root>/test/scout/ui/fixtures
    • API fixtures: <plugin-root>/test/scout/api/fixtures
    • Shared: <plugin-root>/test/scout/common/fixtures

  2. Create a fixtures/index.ts entry point

    Typically you’ll create a fixtures/index.ts entry point that extends Scout’s base test (UI) and/or apiTest (API), then import that in your spec files:

    // UI test spec: <plugin-root>/test/scout/ui/tests/my_suite.spec.ts
import { tags } from '@kbn/scout';
import { test } from '../fixtures';

test('uses plugin fixtures', { tag: tags.deploymentAgnostic }, async ({ pageObjects }) => {
  // ...
});

  3. Contribute when broadly useful

    If a fixture would be broadly useful, consider contributing it to @kbn/scout (platform-wide) or your solution Scout package.