Principle:Nightwatchjs Nightwatch Configuration Setup
| Knowledge Sources | |
|---|---|
| Domains | Testing, Configuration |
| Last Updated | 2026-02-12 00:00 GMT |
Overview
A declarative configuration pattern that defines test execution behavior, timeouts, polling intervals, and environment-specific overrides for an automated testing framework.
Description
Configuration Setup establishes the runtime parameters for test execution. In end-to-end testing, configuration controls critical behaviors such as assertion failure handling (abort vs. continue), element wait timeouts, polling intervals, async hook timeouts, and environment-specific variable overrides.
The configuration follows a layered approach: global defaults are defined at the top level, while environment-specific overrides (e.g., test_env, staging) can selectively replace values. This allows a single configuration file to support multiple deployment targets.
Usage
Use this principle after project initialization and before writing test cases. Configuration must be established to define how the test runner behaves across different environments, browsers, and CI/CD pipelines.
Theoretical Basis
The configuration pattern follows a hierarchical merge strategy:
- Base defaults are defined at the module root level
- Environment overrides are nested under named keys (e.g., test_env)
- At runtime, the active environment's values are deep-merged over the defaults
- Global settings (timeouts, polling) propagate to all commands unless overridden
// Pseudocode: Configuration merge algorithm
finalConfig = deepMerge(baseDefaults, environmentOverrides[activeEnv])