Bdd Run

BDD Run — Execute and Report Behave Tests

Execute Behave test suites with tag filtering, parallel execution, output formatting, and CI integration. Diagnose failures and suggest fixes.

When to use

• Running the full BDD test suite or a subset by tags
• Getting JUnit/JSON reports for CI pipelines
• Re-running only failed scenarios
• Running tests in parallel for speed
• Diagnosing and triaging test failures

Process

1. Pre-flight checks

Before running tests, verify the environment:

# Verify Behave is installed
uv run behave --version

# Verify Databricks auth
uv run python -c "from databricks.sdk import WorkspaceClient; print(WorkspaceClient().current_user.me().user_name)"

# Dry run to check step coverage
uv run behave --dry-run

If any undefined steps are found, report them and suggest using the bdd-steps skill.

2. Execute tests

Run by tag (most common):

# Smoke tests only
uv run behave --tags="@smoke" --format=pretty

# All except slow and WIP
uv run behave --tags="not @slow and not @wip"

# Specific domain
uv run behave --tags="@catalog"
uv run behave --tags="@pipeline"

# Boolean combinations
uv run behave --tags="(@catalog or @pipeline) and @smoke"

Run specific feature file or directory:

uv run behave features/catalog/permissions.feature
uv run behave features/pipelines/

Run by scenario name:

uv run behave --name "Grant SELECT on a table"

Pass runtime configuration:

uv run behave -D warehouse_id=abc123 -D catalog=my_catalog -D environment=dev

3. Output and reporting

For local development:

uv run behave --format=pretty --show-timings

For CI pipelines (JUnit XML):

uv run behave --junit --junit-directory=reports/behave/ --format=progress

JSON output for programmatic analysis:

uv run behave --format=json --outfile=reports/results.json --format=progress

Multiple formatters simultaneously:

uv run behave --format=pretty --format=json --outfile=reports/results.json

4. Re-run failed tests

Configure rerun file output, then re-run only failures:

# First run captures failures
uv run behave --format=rerun --outfile=reports/rerun.txt --format=pretty

# Re-run only failed scenarios
uv run behave @reports/rerun.txt

5. Parallel execution

Behave has no built-in parallelism. Use behavex for parallel feature execution:

uv run behavex --parallel-processes 4 --parallel-scheme feature

Each parallel worker needs its own test schema to avoid cross-contamination. The environment.py template from bdd-scaffold handles this by using timestamped schema names with worker ID suffixes.

6. Failure diagnosis

When tests fail, read the output and categorize:

7. Makefile integration

If a Makefile exists, prefer make targets:

make bdd           # Full suite
make bdd-smoke     # Smoke tests
make bdd-report    # JUnit for CI