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Unit tests |
Teams test a variety of UI characteristics using different tools. Each tool requires you to replicate the same component state over and over. That’s a maintenance headache. Ideally, you’d set up your tests similarly and reuse that across tools.
Storybook enables you to isolate a component and capture its use cases in a *.stories.js|ts file. Stories are standard JavaScript modules that are cross-compatible with the whole JavaScript ecosystem.
Stories are a practical starting point for UI testing. Import stories into tools like Jest, Testing Library, Vitest and Playwright, to save time and maintenance work.
Testing Library is a suite of helper libraries for browser-based interaction tests. With Component Story Format, your stories are reusable with Testing Library. Each named export (story) is renderable within your testing setup. For example, if you were working on a login component and wanted to test the invalid credentials scenario, here's how you could write your test:
<CodeSnippets paths={[ 'react/component-test-with-testing-library.js.mdx', 'react/component-test-with-testing-library.ts.mdx', 'vue/component-test-with-testing-library.3.js.mdx', 'vue/component-test-with-testing-library.3.ts.mdx', ]} />
You can use Testing Library out-of-the-box with Storybook Interaction Testing.
Once the test runs, it loads the story and renders it. Testing Library then emulates the user's behavior and checks if the component state has been updated.
By default, Storybook offers a zero-config setup for React and other frameworks via addons, allowing you to run your stories as tests with Testing Library. However, if you're running tests and you've set up specific configurations in your Storybook instance (e.g., global decorators, parameters) that you want to use in your tests, you'll need to extend your test setup to include these configurations. To do so, create a setup.js|ts file as follows:
<CodeSnippets paths={[ 'react/storybook-testing-addon-optional-config.js.mdx', 'vue/storybook-testing-addon-optional-config.js.mdx', ]} />
Update your test script to include the configuration file:
<CodeSnippets paths={[ 'react/react-test-scripts-optional-config-scripts.json.mdx', ]} />
Update your test configuration file (e.g., vite.config.js|ts) if you're using Vitest or your test script if you're using Jest:
<CodeSnippets paths={[ 'vue/storybook-testing-addon-optional-config.vite.js.mdx', 'vue/storybook-testing-addon-optional-config.vite.ts.mdx', 'vue/vue-jest-optional-config-scripts.jest.js.mdx', 'vue/vue-jest-optional-config-scripts.jest.ts.mdx', ]} />
By default, the setProjectAnnotations function injects into your existing tests any global configuration you've defined in your Storybook instance (i.e., parameters, decorators in the preview.js|ts file). Nevertheless, this may cause unforeseen side effects for tests that are not intended to use these global configurations. To avoid this, you can override the global configurations by extending either the composeStory or composeStories functions to provide test-specific configurations. For example:
<CodeSnippets paths={[ 'react/override-compose-story-test.compose-story.js.mdx', 'react/override-compose-story-test.compose-story.ts.mdx', 'vue/override-compose-story-test.compose-story.3.js.mdx', 'vue/override-compose-story-test.compose-story.3.ts.mdx', 'react/override-compose-story-test.compose-stories.js.mdx', 'react/override-compose-story-test.compose-stories.ts.mdx', 'vue/override-compose-story-test.compose-stories.3.js.mdx', 'vue/override-compose-story-test.compose-stories.3.ts.mdx', ]} />
You can use the composeStory function from the appropriate framework or supported addon to allow your tests to run on a single story. However, if you're relying on this method, we recommend that you supply the story metadata (i.e., the default export) to the composeStory function. This ensures that your tests can accurately determine the correct information about the story. For example:
<CodeSnippets paths={[ 'react/single-story-test.js.mdx', 'react/single-story-test.ts.mdx', 'vue/single-story-test.3.js.mdx', 'vue/single-story-test.3.ts.mdx', ]} />
If you intend to test multiple stories in a single test, use the composeStories function from the appropriate framework or supported addon. The function will process every component story you've specified, including any args or decorators you've defined. For example:
<CodeSnippets paths={[ 'react/multiple-stories-test.js.mdx', 'react/multiple-stories-test.ts.mdx', 'vue/multiple-stories-test.3.js.mdx', 'vue/multiple-stories-test.3.ts.mdx', ]} />
Storybook provides community-led addons for other frameworks like Vue 2 and Angular. However, these addons still lack support for the latest stable Storybook release. If you're interested in helping out, we recommend reaching out to the maintainers using the default communication channels (GitHub and Discord server).
The components returned by composeStories or composeStory not only can be rendered as React components but also come with the combined properties from the story, meta, and global configuration. This means that if you want to access args or parameters, for instance, you can do so:
<CodeSnippets paths={[ 'react/reuse-args-test.js.mdx', 'react/reuse-args-test.ts.mdx', ]} />
When using the composeStories or composeStory functions, the components being rendered will have a combination of properties from the story, meta, and global configuration. Therefore, if you need to access the args or parameters, you can do so as follows:
<CodeSnippets paths={[ 'vue/reuse-args-test.3.js.mdx', 'vue/reuse-args-test.3.ts.mdx', ]} />
Learn about other UI tests
- Test runner to automate test execution
- Visual tests for appearance
- Accessibility tests for accessibility
- Interaction tests for user behavior simulation
- Coverage tests for measuring code coverage
- Snapshot tests for rendering errors and warnings
- End-to-end tests for simulating real user scenarios
- Unit tests for functionality