Plugins

In this section, we will discuss the official and community developed plugins that we endorse. Plugins primarily offer namespaced functions, console commands, custom expectations, and additional command-line options to augment the default Pest experience.

If you are a plugin developer, please consult our documentation on creating plugins for more information on how to create Pest plugins.

The following plugins are maintained by the Pest team:

Faker

Source code: github.com/pestphp/pest-plugin-faker

To start using Pest's Faker plugin, you need to require the plugin via Composer.

1composer require pestphp/pest-plugin-faker --dev

After installing the plugin, you may utilize the namespaced fake function to generate fake data for your tests.

1use function Pest\Faker\fake;
2 
3it('generates a name', function () {
4    $name = fake()->name; // random name...
5 
6    //
7});

You can also designate the "locale" that should be utilized by the fake() function by providing the locale to the function.

1use function Pest\Faker\fake;
2 
3it('generates a portuguese name', function () {
4    $name = fake('pt_PT')->name; // Nuno Maduro
5 
6    //
7});

To learn more about Faker, including comprehensive details about the API it provides, please consult its official documentation.

Laravel

Source code: github.com/pestphp/pest-plugin-laravel

To start using Pest's Laravel plugin, you need to require this plugin via Composer.

1composer require pestphp/pest-plugin-laravel --dev

This plugin adds additional Artisan commands and functions to the default Pest installation. For example, to generate a new test in the tests/Feature directory, you can now utilize the pest:test Artisan command.

1php artisan pest:test UsersTest

You may provide the --unit option when creating a test to place the test in the tests/Unit directory.

1php artisan pest:test UsersTest --unit

Executing the pest:dataset Artisan command will create a fresh dataset in the tests/Datasets directory.

1php artisan pest:dataset Emails

As you may know, Laravel provides a variety of assertions you can take advantage of in your feature tests. When using Pest's Laravel plugin, you may access all of those assertions as you typically would.

1it('has a welcome page', function () {
2    $this->get('/')->assertStatus(200);
3});

In addition, with the assistance of this plugin, it is possible for you to bypass the $this variable while using namespaced functions such as actingAs, get, post and delete.

1use function Pest\Laravel\{get};
2 
3it('has a welcome page', function () {
4    get('/')->assertStatus(200);
5    // same as $this->get('/')...
6});

To illustrate this convenient feature using another example, we can write a test acting as an authenticated user accessing the restricted dashboard page.

1use App\Models\User;
2use function Pest\Laravel\{actingAs};
3 
4test('authenticated user can access the dashboard', function () {
5    $user = User::factory()->create();
6 
7    actingAs($user)->get('/dashboard')
8        ->assertStatus(200);
9});

As you may expect, all of the assertions that were previously accessible via $this-> are available as namespace functions.

1use function Pest\Laravel\{actingAs, get, post, delete, ...};

You can find the full testing documentation on the Laravel website: laravel.com/docs/12.x/testing.

Livewire

Source code: github.com/pestphp/pest-plugin-livewire

To install Pest's Livewire plugin, you need to require the plugin via Composer.

1composer require pestphp/pest-plugin-livewire --dev

After installing the plugin, you may use the livewire namespaced function to access your Livewire components.

 1use function Pest\Livewire\livewire;
 2 
 3it('can be incremented', function () {
 4    livewire(Counter::class)
 5        ->call('increment')
 6        ->assertSee(1);
 7});
 8 
 9it('can be decremented', function () {
10    livewire(Counter::class)
11        ->call('decrement')
12        ->assertSee(-1);
13});

Watch

Source code: github.com/pestphp/pest-plugin-watch

To install Pest's "watch" plugin, you need to require the plugin via Composer.

1composer require pestphp/pest-plugin-watch --dev

Make sure you also install fswatch so Pest can monitor when a file changes.

Once both the plugin and fswatch are installed, you will be able to use the --watch option when running Pest. This option instructs Pest to monitor your application and automatically re-run your tests when you change files within a list of specified directories.

1pest --watch

By default, the plugin monitors the following directories.

1tests/
2app/
3src/

To customize the watched directories, supply a comma-separated list of directories (relative to your application root) to the --watch flag.

1pest --watch=app,routes,tests

By default, the output is not colored, as watch mode starts a new process, so Pest doesn't know it's running in a Terminal. To force Pest's output to be colored, you can use the --colors flag.

1pest --watch --colors=always

In this section, we have seen how plugins can enhance your Pest experience. Now, let's see how you can manage your team's tasks and responsibilities using Pest: Team Management