Overview

A CLI tool to render and execute Robot Framework tests using Jinja templating. Combining Robot’s language agnostic syntax with the flexibility of Jinja templating allows dynamically rendering a set of test suites from the desired infrastructure state expressed in YAML syntax.

$ nac-test -h

 Usage: nac-test [OPTIONS]

 A CLI tool to render and execute Robot Framework tests using Jinja templating.

╭─ Options ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ *  --data         -d      PATH                                 Path to data YAML files. [env var: NAC_TEST_DATA] [default: None] [required]                │
│ *  --templates    -t      DIRECTORY                            Path to test templates. [env var: NAC_TEST_TEMPLATES] [default: None] [required]            │
│ *  --output       -o      DIRECTORY                            Path to output directory. [env var: NAC_TEST_OUTPUT] [default: None] [required]             │
│    --filters      -f      DIRECTORY                            Path to Jinja filters. [env var: NAC_TEST_FILTERS] [default: None]                          │
│    --tests                DIRECTORY                            Path to Jinja tests. [env var: NAC_TEST_TESTS] [default: None]                              │
│    --include      -i      TEXT                                 Selects the test cases by tag (include). [env var: NAC_TEST_INCLUDE]                        │
│    --exclude      -e      TEXT                                 Selects the test cases by tag (exclude). [env var: NAC_TEST_EXCLUDE]                        │
│    --render-only                                               Only render tests without executing them. [env var: NAC_TEST_RENDER_ONLY]                   │
│    --dry-run                                                   Dry run flag. See robot dry run mode. [env var: NAC_TEST_DRY_RUN]                           │
│    --verbosity    -v      [DEBUG|INFO|WARNING|ERROR|CRITICAL]  Verbosity level. [env var: NAC_VALIDATE_VERBOSITY] [default: WARNING]                       │
│    --version                                                   Display version number.                                                                     │
│    --help                                                      Show this message and exit.                                                                 │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

All data from the YAML files (--data option) will first be combined into a single data structure which is then provided as input to the templating process. Each template in the --templates path will then be rendered and written to the --output path. If the --templates path has subfolders, the folder structure will be retained when rendering the templates.

After all templates have been rendered Pabot will execute all test suites in parallel and create a test report in the --output path. The --skiponfailure non-critical argument will be used by default, meaning all failed tests with a non-critical tag will show up as “skipped” instead of “failed” in the final test report.

Python 3.10+ is required to install nac-test. Don’t have Python 3.10 or later? See Python 3 Installation & Setup Guide.

nac-test can be installed in a virtual environment using pip:

pip install nac-test

The following Robot libraries are installed with nac-test:

• RESTinstance
• Requests
• JSONLibrary

Any other libraries can of course be added via pip.

Values in YAML files can be encrypted using Ansible Vault. This requires Ansible (ansible-vault command) to be installed and the following two environment variables to be defined:

export ANSIBLE_VAULT_ID=dev
export ANSIBLE_VAULT_PASSWORD=Password123

ANSIBLE_VAULT_ID is optional, and if not defined will be omitted.

The !env YAML tag can be used to read values from environment variables.

root:
  name: !env VAR_NAME

data.yaml located in ./data folder:

---
root:
  children:
    - name: ABC
      param: value
    - name: DEF
      param: value

test1.robot located in ./templates folder:

*** Settings ***
Documentation   Test1

*** Test Cases ***
{% for child in root.children | default([]) %}

Test {{ child.name }}
    Should Be Equal   {{ child.param }}   value
{% endfor %}

After running nac-test with the following parameters:

nac-test --data ./data --templates ./templates --output ./tests

The following rendered Robot test suite can be found in the ./tests folder:

*** Settings ***
Documentation   Test1

*** Test Cases ***

Test ABC
    Should Be Equal   value   value

Test DEF
    Should Be Equal   value   value

As well as the test results and reports:

$ tree -L 1 tests
tests
├── log.html
├── output.xml
├── pabot_results
├── report.html
├── test1.robot
└── xunit.xml

Custom Jinja filters can be used by providing a set of Python classes where each filter is implemented as a separate Filter class in a .py file located in the --filters path. The class must have a single attribute named name, the filter name, and a classmethod() named filter which has one or more arguments. A sample filter can be found below.

class Filter:
    name = "filter1"

    @classmethod
    def filter(cls, data):
        return str(data) + "_filtered"

Custom Jinja tests can be used by providing a set of Python classes where each test is implemented as a separate Test class in a .py file located in the --tests path. The class must have a single attribute named name, the test name, and a classmethod() named test which has one or more arguments. A sample test can be found below.

class Test:
    name = "test1"

    @classmethod
    def test(cls, data1, data2):
        return data1 == data2

Special rendering directives exist to render a single test suite per (YAML) list item. The directive can be added to the Robot template as a Jinja comment following this syntax:

{# iterate_list <YAML_PATH_TO_LIST> <LIST_ITEM_ID> <JINJA_VARIABLE_NAME> #}

After running nac-test with the data from the previous example and the following template:

{# iterate_list root.children name child_name #}
*** Settings ***
Documentation   Test1

*** Test Cases ***
{% for child in root.children | default([]) %}
{% if child.name == child_name %}

Test {{ child.name }}
    Should Be Equal   {{ child.param }}   value
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}

The following test suites will be rendered:

$ tree -L 2 tests
tests
├── ABC
│   └── test1.robot
└── DEF
    └── test1.robot

A similar directive exists to put the test suites in a common folder though with a unique filename.

{# iterate_list_folder <YAML_PATH_TO_LIST> <LIST_ITEM_ID> <JINJA_VARIABLE_NAME> #}

The following test suites will be rendered:

$ tree -L 2 tests
tests
└── test1
    ├── ABC.robot
    └── DEF.robot

It is possible to include and exclude test cases by tag names with the --include and --exclude CLI options. These options are directly passed to the Pabot/Robot executor and are documented here.