Cypress default events are simulated. That means that all events like cy.click or cy.type are fired from javascript. That's why these events will be untrusted (event.isTrusted will be false) and they can behave a little different from real native events. But for some cases it can be impossible to use simulated events, for example to fill a native alert or copy to the clipboard. This plugin solves this problem.

Thanks to Chrome Devtools Protocol. Cypress is connecting to CDP for tasks like screenshots, setting viewport and others. This project utilises the same connection to fire system events. Event firing system works literally like in puppeteer. And as a result unlocks such features like hovering and native focus management via Tab.

Cypress only. Really. Cypress itself can fire native events. The only limitation for real events – they work only in the chromium-based browser. That means that Firefox is not supported, at least for now.

Here is a simple test that can be written with native events:

it("tests real events", () => {
  cy.get("input").realClick(); // perform a native real click on the field
  cy.realType("cypress real event"); // fires native system keypress events and fills the field
  cy.realPress("Tab"); // native tab click switches the focus
  cy.get("input").realMouseDown(); // perform a native mouse press on the field
  cy.get("input").realMouseUp(); // perform a native mouse release on the field
  cy.focused().realHover(); // hovers over the new focused element
  cy.contains("some text in the hovered popover");
});

Install npm package:

npm install cypress-real-events

yarn add cypress-real-events

Register new commands by adding this to your cypress/support/index.{js,ts} file.

import "cypress-real-events/support";

If you are using typescript, also add the following to cypress/tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "types": ["cypress", "cypress-real-events"]
  }
}

The idea of the commands – they should be as similar as possible to cypress default commands (like cy.type), but starts with real – cy.realType.

Here is an overview of the available real event commands:

• cy.realClick
• cy.realHover
• cy.realPress
• cy.realTouch
• cy.realType
• cy.realSwipe
• cy.realMouseDown
• cy.realMouseUp

Fires native system click event.

cy.get("button").realClick();
cy.get("button").realClick(options);

Example:

cy.get("button").realClick({ position: "topLeft" }) // click on the top left corner of button
cy.get("body").realClick({ x: 100, y: 1240 }) // click by the x & y coordinates relative to the whole window

Options:

• Optional button: "none" | "left" | "right" | "middle" | "back" | "forward"
• Optional pointer: "mouse" | "pen"
• Optional x coordinate to click x: number
• Optional y coordinate to click y: number
• Optional position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"
• Optional scrollBehavior: "center" | "top" | "bottom" | "nearest" | false

Make sure that x and y has a bigger priority than position.

Fires a real native hover event. Yes, it can test :hover preprocessor.

cy.get("button").realHover();
cy.get("button").realHover(options);

Example:

cy.get("button").realHover({ position: "bottomLeft" }) // hovers over the bottom left corner of button

Options:

• Optional pointer: "mouse" | "pen"
• Optional position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"
• Optional scrollBehavior: "center" | "top" | "bottom" | "nearest" | false

Fires native press event. It can fire one key event or the "shortcut" like Shift+Control+M. Make sure that event is global, it means that it is required to firstly focus any control before firing this event.

cy.realPress("Tab"); // switch the focus for a11y testing
cy.realPress(["Alt", "Meta", "P"]) // Alt+(Command or Control)+P

cy.realPress(key);
cy.realPress(key, options);

Fires native system touch event.

cy.get("button").realTouch();
cy.get("button").realTouch(options);

cy.get("button").realTouch({ position: "topLeft" }) // touches the top left corner of button
cy.get("body").realTouch({ x: 100, y: 1240 }) // touches the x & y coordinates relative to the whole window

Options:

• Optional x: undefined | number default 30
• Optional y: undefined | false | true default true
• Optional position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"
• Optional radius: undefined | number default 1
• Optional radiusX: undefined | number default 1
• Optional radiusY: undefined | number default 1

Runs a sequence of native press events (via cy.realPress). This can be used to simulate real typing. Make sure that type event is global. This means that it is not attached to any field.

cy.realType("type any text"); // type any text on the page

cy.get("input").focus();
cy.realType("some text {enter}"); // type into focused field

cy.realType(text);
cy.realType(text, options);

Options:

• Optional delay: undefined | number default 30
• Optional log: undefined | false | true default true
• Optional pressDelay: undefined | number default 10

Runs a native swipe events. It means that touch events will be fired. Actually a sequence of touchStart -> touchMove -> touchEnd. It can perfectly swipe drawers and other tools like this one.

Make sure to enable mobile viewport :)

cy.get('.element').realSwipe("toLeft");  // swipes from right to left
cy.get('.element').realSwipe("toRight"); // inverted

cy.realSwipe(direction);
cy.realSwipe(direction, options);

Options:

• Optional length: undefined | number default 10
• Optional x coordinate to touch x: number
• Optional y coordinate to touch y: number
• Optional touchPosition: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"

Fires native system mouse down event.

cy.get("button").realMouseDown();
cy.get("button").realMouseDown(options);

Example:

cy.get("button").realMouseDown({ position: "topLeft" }) // click on the top left corner of button

Options:

• Optional pointer: "mouse" | "pen"
• Optional position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"
• Optional scrollBehavior: "center" | "top" | "bottom" | "nearest" | false

Fires native system mouse up event.

cy.get("button").realMouseUp();
cy.get("button").realMouseUp(options);

Example:

cy.get("button").realMouseUp({ position: "topLeft" }) // click on the top left corner of button

Options:

• Optional pointer: "mouse" | "pen"
• Optional position: "topLeft" | "top" | "topRight" | "left" | "center" | "right" | "bottomLeft" | "bottom" | "bottomRight"
• Optional scrollBehavior: "center" | "top" | "bottom" | "nearest" | false

1. Why .realHover hovering state does not show in the visual regression services?

Unforunately, visual regression services like Happo and Percy does not solve this issue. Thier architecture is based on saving dom snapshot, not the screenshot and then rendering the snapshot on thier machines. It means that hover and focus state will be lost if it won't be serialized manually.

In fact it means that if you will use plain cy.screenshot it will render screenshot with hovering state because using browser itself to make a screenshot. Testing hovering state is possible with, for example, Visual Regression Tracker and cypress-image-snapshot.

One problem of the real native system events I need to mention – you will not get an error message if the event wasn't produced. Similar to selenium or playwright – if a javascript event was not fired you will not get a comprehensive error message.

So probably this package should not be used as a replacement of the cypress events, at least for the writing tests experience 🐨

The project is licensed under the terms of MIT license