Part 3. How do I build it? Coding the BDD way

In the chapters in part 2, you learned about the importance of conversation and collaboration in the BDD process. You also learned that you need to work with team members to define acceptance criteria in a clear and unambiguous format that can be automated using tools such as Cucumber.

In part 3, we look under the hood to see how you can do this automation. While part 2 should be understood by the whole team, part 3 gets a bit more technical and will be of more interest to testers and developers.

In chapter 8, you’ll learn about tools that you can use to automate the executable specifications we defined in part 2. Automation is an important part of BDD; it forms the basis of the automated acceptance criteria that verify the features being delivered and of the living documentation that illustrates and documents these features.

As with any code base, the maintenance of automated acceptance tests can be costly if they’re not written well. In chapter 9, you’ll learn how to structure and organize your automated acceptance criteria to make them easier to understand and to maintain.