BDD Scenarios

Learn to write clear, maintainable BDD scenarios that effectively capture business requirements and drive implementation.

Writing Good Scenarios

A good scenario should be:

Specific: Test one behavior Declarative: Describe what, not how Business-focused: Use domain language Independent: No dependencies on other scenarios

Good scenario - specific and declarative

Scenario: Customer receives loyalty discount Given a customer with Gold membership status And a cart total of $100 When the customer proceeds to checkout Then a 10% loyalty discount should be applied And the final total should be $90

Bad scenario - too implementation-focused

Scenario: Apply discount Given I click the membership dropdown And I select "Gold" from the list When I click the checkout button Then the JavaScript calculates 10% off

Acceptance Criteria Format Feature: Order Refunds

# Rule-based acceptance criteria Rule: Full refunds are available within 30 days

Scenario: Refund requested within return window
  Given an order placed 15 days ago
  When the customer requests a refund
  Then a full refund should be processed

Scenario: Refund requested after return window
  Given an order placed 45 days ago
  When the customer requests a refund
  Then the refund should be denied
  And the customer should see "Return window expired"

Edge Case Scenarios Feature: User Registration

Scenario: Successful registration Given I am on the registration page When I submit valid registration details Then my account should be created

# Edge cases Scenario: Registration with existing email Given a user exists with email "existing@example.com" When I try to register with email "existing@example.com" Then I should see "Email already registered"

Scenario: Registration with invalid email format When I try to register with email "not-an-email" Then I should see "Please enter a valid email"

Scenario: Registration with empty required fields When I submit the registration form with empty fields Then I should see validation errors for required fields

Scenario Tags and Organization @authentication @critical Feature: User Login

@smoke Scenario: Basic login flow # ...

@security Scenario: Account lockout after failed attempts # ...

@wip Scenario: Two-factor authentication # Work in progress

When to Use This Skill

Use bdd-scenarios when you need to:

Define acceptance criteria for user stories Document expected system behavior Create comprehensive test coverage Identify edge cases early in development Communicate requirements clearly Best Practices Start with the happy path scenario Add edge cases systematically Use tags for organization and filtering Keep scenarios at 3-7 steps Write scenarios before implementation Review scenarios with stakeholders Common Pitfalls Writing scenarios after implementation Including too many steps per scenario Using vague or ambiguous language Forgetting negative test cases Not organizing with tags effectively