Using aliases in Cypress

Question

I'm trying to share values between my before and beforeEach hooks using aliases. It currently works if my value is a string but when the value is an object, the alias is only defined in the first test, every test after that this.user is undefined in my beforeEach hook. How can I share a value which is an object between tests?

This is my code:

before(function() {
  const email = `test+${uuidv4()}@example.com`;
  cy
    .register(email)
    .its("body.data.user")
    .as("user");
});

beforeEach(function() {
  console.log("this.user", this.user); // This is undefined in every test except the first
});

Answer 1

Aliased variables are accessed via cy.get('@user') or expect(user) syntax. I understand this is because some commands are inherently asynchronous, so using a wrapper to access the variable ensures it is resolved before being used.

See documentation Variables and Aliases and get.

If you want to access a global user value, you might try something like

let user;

before(function() {
  const email = `test+${uuidv4()}@example.com`;
  cy
    .register(email)
    .its("body.data.user")
    .then(result => user = result);
});

beforeEach(function() {
  console.log("global user", user); 
});

where the then resolves like a promise, but you should be wary of delay in resolving - the console.log may run before the then.