VueJS

Introducing the Vue 3 and XState kit for starter.dev

Published Jul 17, 2023

Updated Oct 12, 2023

6 min read

This article was written over 18 months ago and may contain information that is out of date. Some content may be relevant but please refer to the relevant official documentation or available resources for the latest information.

Starter.dev is an open source community resource developed by This Dot Labs that provides code starter kits in a variety of web technologies, including React, Angular, Vue, etc. with the hope of enabling developers to bootstrap their projects quickly without having to spend time configuring tooling.

Intro

Today, we’re delighted to announce a new starter kit featuring Vue and XState! In this blog post, we’ll dive into what’s included with the kit, how to get started using it, and what makes this kit unique.

What’s included

All of our kits strive to provide you with popular and reliable frameworks and libraries, along with recommended tooling all configured for you, and designed to help you spin your projects up faster. This kit includes:

Vue as the core JS framework
XState for managing our application’s state
CSS for styling
Cypress component testing
Vue Router to manage navigation between pages
Storybook for visual prototyping
ESlint and Prettier to lint and format your code

How to get started using the kit

To get started using this kit, we recommend the starter CLI tool. You can pass in the kit name directly, and the tool will guide you through naming your project, installing your dependencies, and running the app locally. Each kit comes with some sample components, so you can see how the provided tooling works together right away.

// npm
npm create @this-dot/create-starter -- --kit vue3-xstate-css
// yarn
yarn create @this-dot/create-starter --kit vue3-xstate-css

Now let’s dive into some of the unique aspects of this kit.

Vue 3

Vue is a very powerful JS framework. We chose to use Vue directly to highlight some of the features that make it such a joy to work with.

One of our favorite features is Vue’s single file components (SFC). We can include our JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for each component all in the same file. This makes it easier to keep all related code directly next to each other, making it easier to debug issues, and allowing less file flipping.

Since we’re in Vue 3, we’re also able to make use of the new Composition API, which looks and feels a bit more like vanilla JavaScript. You can import files, create functions, and do most anything you could in regular JavaScript within your component’s script tag. Any variable name you create is automatically available within your HTML template.

Provide and Inject

Another feature we got to use specifically in this starter kit is the new provide and inject functionality. You can read more details about this in the Vue docs, but this feature gives us a way to avoid prop drilling and provide values directly where they’re needed.

In this starter kit, we include a “greeting” example, which makes an API call using a provided message, and shows the user a generated greeting. Initially, we provided this message as a prop through the router to the greeting component. This works, but it did require us to do a little more legwork to provide a fallback value, as well as needing our router to be aware of the prop.

Using the provide / inject setup, we’re able to provide our message through the root level of the app, making it globally available to any child component. Then, when we need to use it in our GreetView component, we inject the “key” we expect (our message), and it provides a built-in way for us to provide a default value to use as a fallback. Now our router doesn’t need to do any prop handling! And our component consistently works with the provided value or offers our default if something goes wrong.

// src/main.ts

const app = createApp(App);
app.provide('query', 'from This Dot Labs!');

// src/views/GreetView.vue

<script setup lang="ts">
import { inject } from 'vue';
const providedQuery = inject('query', '');
const { state } = useMachine(greetMachine(providedQuery));
</script>

Using XState

If you haven’t had a chance to look into XState before, we highly recommend checking out their documentation. They have a great intro to state machines and state charts that explains the concepts really well.

One of the biggest mindset shifts that happens when you work with state machines is that they really help you think through how your application should work. State machines make you think explicitly through the different modes or “states” your application can get into, and what actions or side effects should happen in those states. By thinking directly through these, it helps you avoid sneaky edge cases and mutations you don’t expect.

Difference between Context and State

One of the parts that can be a little confusing at first is the difference between “state” and “context” when it comes to state machines. It can be easy to think of state as any values you store in your application that you want to persist between components or paths, and that can be accurate. However, with XState, a “state” is really more the idea of what configurations your app can be in.

A common example is a music player. Your player can be in an “off” state, a “playing” state, or a “paused” state. These are all different modes, if you will, that can happen when your music player is interacted with. They can be values in a way, but they’re really more like the versions of your interface that you want to exist. You can transition between states, but when you go back to a specific state, you expect everything to behave the same way each time. States can trigger changes to your data or make API calls, but each time you enter or leave a state, you should be able to see the same actions occur. They give you stability and help prevent hidden edge cases.

Values that we normally think of as state, things like strings or numbers or objects, that might change as your application is interacted with. These are the values that are stored in the “context” within XState. Our context values are the pieces of our application that are quantitative and that we expect will change as our application is working.

export const counterMachine = createMachine(
  {
	id: 'Counter',
	initial: 'active',
	context: {
		count: 0,
	},
	states: {
		active: {
			on: {
				INC: { actions: 'increment' },
				DEC: { actions: 'decrement' },
				RESET: { actions: 'reset' },
			},
		},
	},
  },
  {
	actions: {
		increment: assign({ count: (context) => context.count + 1 }),
		decrement: assign({ count: (context) => context.count - 1 }),
		reset: assign({ count: (context) => (context.count = 0) }),
	},
  }
);

Declaring Actions and Services

When we create a state machine with XState, it accepts two values- a config object and an options object. The config tells us what the machine does. This is where we define our states and transitions. In the options object, we can provide more information on how the machine does things, including logic for guards, actions, and effects.

You can write your actions and effect logic within the state that initiates those calls, which can be great for getting the machine working in the beginning. However, it’s recommended to make those into named functions within the options object, making it easier to debug issues and improving the readability for how our machine works.

Cypress Testing

The last interesting thing we’d like to talk about is our setup for using component testing in Cypress! To use their component testing feature, they provide you with a mount command, which handles mounting your individual components onto their test runner so you can unit test them in isolation.

While this works great out of the box, there’s also a way to customize the mount command if you need to! This is where you’d want to add any configuration your application needs to work properly in a testing setup. Things like routing and state management setups would get added to this function.

Since we made use of Vue’s provide and inject functions, we needed to add the provided value to our mount command in order for our greeting test to properly work. With that set up, we can allow it to provide our default empty string for tests that don’t need to worry about injecting a value (or when we specifically want to test our default value), and then we can inject the value we want in the tests that do need a specific value!

// cypress/support/component.ts

Cypress.Commands.add('mount', (component, options = {}) => {
  options.global = options.global || {};
  options.global.provide = options.global.provide || {};
  return mount(component, options);
});

Conclusion

We hope you enjoy using this starter kit! We’ve touched a bit on the benefits of using Vue 3, how XState keeps our application working as we expect, and how we can test our components with Cypress.

Have a request or a question about a [starter.dev] project? Reach out in the issues to make your requests or ask us your questions. The project is 100% open sourced so feel free to hop in and code with us!

This Dot is a consultancy dedicated to guiding companies through their modernization and digital transformation journeys. Specializing in replatforming, modernizing, and launching new initiatives, we stand out by taking true ownership of your engineering projects.

We love helping teams with projects that have missed their deadlines or helping keep your strategic digital initiatives on course. Check out our case studies and our clients that trust us with their engineering.

About the author(s)

Linda Thompson
@lindakatcodes @lindakatcodes

Getting started with Vitepress

Getting started with Vitepress to create your blog site Have you heard about Vitepress, but you have not checked it out at it yet? Well, in this article, we are going to cover the basic setup and share what all the fuss about this new fantastic static site generator. If you are looking for something that would allow you to quickly create a static site with Markdown support, search, Light/Dark theme, advertisement, navigation, and much more, then Vitepress is what you are looking for. Suppose you want some proof of Vitepress's power without having to invest any further time, I suggest you head over to the main Vitepress site (vitepress.dev) and experience what Vitepress can do, as the official site is built on Vitepress! What is Vitepress Vitepress is a powerful Static Site Generator powered by Vite mainly used for Documentation and Blogs with the default theme, and open to customization to be used for anything you may need it to with custom themes and theme overrides.. Vitepress power comes from its low learning curve, powerful configuration settings, and the ability to easily customize it. For example, internationalization is built-in, Theme toggling is built-in and even full-site searches require a single line in the config to be set up. What makes Vitepress so powerful is its extensive configuration and the fact that it can be customized by overriding the existing theme, creating your theme, or simply enhancing pages with custom Vue code. Prerequisites To successfully run the following demo, you will need: - Node.js version 18 or higher. - Terminal for accessing VitePress via its command line interface (CLI). - Text Editor with Markdown syntax support. - VSCode is recommended, along with the official Vue extension. Create your project To create the project, we will follow the steps shown in the official Getting Started guide. If you want to set up a Vitepress project quickly, run the following steps: - Create a new folder mkdir vitepress-tutorial - Access the folder cd vitepress-tutorial - Install Vitepress npm add -D vitepress - Run the Wizard npx vitepress init - Answer the questions: - Where should VitePress initialize the config? - Site title - Site Description - Theme - Do you want Typescript support? - run npm run docs:dev - Enjoy your site. After you run the above steps, your Vitepress will be ready and running as shown below What is available out of the box The site comes fully set up with enough to get you started. Let's see what features are available within the software: - Navbar: The site comes with a Navbar that already includes links to our blog pages - Light/Dark theme: Out of the box theming - Home page: Basic Homepage layout - Blogs: Two different blog posts with sidebar navigation All of the above is available with just 4 files! Let's move forward and see how to customize our app. Overriding the homepage It is time to modify our site by accessing its folders. What you will probably notice when opening the site, is that Vitepress follows a very simple file structure, in fact, a new installation just includes 4 extra files on top of the expected package.json and node_modules. Let's update our homepage to make it more unique. Because Vitepress follows a "file-system based router" we can find this file within the root of the project within a file called index.md. This file will be accessible at "/" or "/index.html" of your site. The content of the file is the following: ` As you can see, the file has no code in it, and it is just driven by configuration, or more specifically in this case Markdown frontmatter, that is a set of configurations accepted by markdown files that help you set up your options such as title, description, og:image. We will describe frontmatter in more detail later in the article. Before we jump into modifying the configuration of the file, you should know that Vitepress has a very extensive and well-detailed documentation site where you can find help if you are stuck or would like to learn more. In this case, we are overriding the "home" page, so the documentation can be found here: Home Page Default Theme configuration. If you read the current file within the homepage, you will notice that it defines a "layout" of "home". This layout displays a main header with CTAs and a set of feature blocks. There are three different layouts available in the Default theme: "home", "doc" and "page". The title and description have already been set from the information we provided from the installation wizard. But the rest is just a basic boiler template. Let's see what we can change: 1) Add a hero image. This image can either be externally sourced or saved within the repository. ` 2) Update the action buttons. ` As shown above, Action buttons have two themes "brand" or "alt" and can accept internal or external links. Vitepress is clever enough to set the external links to open in a new tab and set the rel="noreferrer". 3) Change the feature blocks: Features blocks are great for engaging with the user and telling them what makes your site special. This accepts an icon and some text, so let's change ours with the following: ` The homepage is now completed and updated and it should look like this: Please note that what we did on the homepage is just changing the markdown front matter of the "home" layout. What this means is that if you want to, you can easily customise the page further by either adding more blocks to the layout file or actually by writing and styling the rest of the page as normal. Site configuration In this step, we are going learn about the main site configuration and how we can use it to customize our site. The configuration file can be found in the .vitepress folder under the name of "config.mjs". Just like the homepage layout, the configuration used in the preset file is self-explanatory: ` This file is very important and you are probably going to have it open at all times as it is going to be responsible for the layout of the sidebar navigations of your site. In this section, we are going to learn how to use the Vitepress configuration file to achieve the following: - Modify the sidebar navigation - Enable Search - Add Favicon to your site Modify the sidebar navigation The sidebar is the component displayed on the left-hand side of the blog pages. This is not automatically generated, but it is manually set in this file. You can have more than one navigation, so, for example, you could specify sidebar navigation that shows in pages that have "/blog/" within their path and another one for all markdown pages that have "/tutorials/". Let's see how to implement this: ` With the above code, there will be 2 different sidebars. One will just show if the URL includes "/blog" and the other will be displayed if the path includes "tutorials". Clicking on the above items will give a 404 error as we do not have any pages in that specific location. Still, we can easily fix the issue by creating the two folders "blog" and "tutorial" and creating the required files within these folders in our case are "index.md" and "one.md" for the blog and "index.md" and "two.md" for tutorials. The sidebar has further settings like the ability to create a nested tree or create collapsable menus. You can learn more by checking out the the official documentation on default theme sidebar. Enable Search No documentation or blog site is complete until a search is fully implemented on it. Luckily for us, enabling a site-wide search is extremely simple with Vitepress. Vitepress supports two different search types: a full-text search using minisearch and Algolia based search. In this tutorial, we are going to enable the full-text search. This is fully built-in and requires no external accounts. To enable search, we need to add a "Search" parameter within our themeConfig and set the provider to "local". We can add this right below the socialLinks. ` With just a simple config change, our site will now have a full site search working as shown below: The official search documentation has further information about the look and functionality of the search. Add Favicon to your site Even if the site configuration is very extensive, there are times when you will need to add something within the site-wise page that is not available. In this section we are going to learn how to add specific attributes to the of our site, and specifically how to add a favicon. To add custom values to the head, we are going to use the "head" properties available with the Vitepress configuration. The "head" configuration is an array that accepts an array with the element type (eg. link, script, meta), and an object including all the attributes for that specific element. So for example to replicate the following HTML: ` we would define the following head config: ` We can use this technique to set up metadata and even load fonts or Google Analytics. More info in the site-config head Writing your post In the last section of this article, we are going to learn how to actually write a blog post and also learn how to customize the pages with JS and styles. Writing your first page In the previous section, we created a couple of markdown files, but they are currently empty. Let's see how to create beautiful documentation using the built-in feature of Vitepress. In this section, we are going to work on the file stored in /blog/index.md. This file can be accessed in your browser by accessing "http://localhost:5174/blog/index.html". Blog Frontmatter Every file needs to have a frontmatter defined. This is used to define basic information on the page, such as the title, description, and more. For best SEO results, it is best practice to always define a title and description for a new page. We can do this by adding the following code at the top of our file: ` Frontmatter in Markdown files are delimited by the "---". In the above code, we set our title and description. Vitepress frontmatter supports further config like lastUpdates, sidebar, outline, and more. You can find info on the frontmatter-config documentation. Frontmatter has some global configuration, such as title and description, but also "layout specific" settings that are just available on specific layouts. This is clearly explained in the documentation. Blog Markdown Now that our post frontmatter is set, it is time to write the content of it. This is done using a very extensive markdown engine. Let's start with the basics and write a heading with some text and a link as shown below: ` After saving, our development environment will show the following results: Let's add a couple of headings and a table of contents to our document using [[toc]] to the top of our page: ` The above will produce an unordered list with all our links. The last feature that I want to share about the Vitepress markdown engine is the code editors. The markdown engine used in Vitepress offers extensive features when it comes to code rendering. Features available are "code highlight", "code focus", external snippets loading and much more. The full list of features can be found in the markdown docs. Let's implement a simple code snippet with a line of code focused. This can be achieved by adding "// [!code focus]" at the end of our row. Let's give it a try: ` The output of this will be: Customize your blog with Vue In this last section, we will learn how to customize our code by adding js logic, style, and external components. Before we begin, it is important to understand that when you use the default template of Vitepress, your pages are going to be rendered with Vue. This means that we can expand the individual page's functionality by rendering other vue components and/or writing logic and styles directly on the page. To better explain this concept, we are going to create a team page. Create a file called team.md within the root of our repository. This file will be accessible on "http://localhost:5174/team.html" and will be just a simple Markdown file. First, we set up the frontmatter as before. In this case, we have to specify an additional config called "layout". This will ensure the page has no style or components loaded such as sidebar or aside. ` Then we will have to create our team variable, just like a normal Vue component; we can do so by defining a script setup tag and defining the constant there. ` In the above code, we have imported the VPTeamMembers component from the vitepress/theme and defined an array of members. The values used in the members array are hardcoded, but as you may expect, you can load this information directly from an API. We now have to use the "members" variable within our file. We can do so by writing normal JavaScript. The markdown file will evaluate the JavaScript and render it, so in the following example it will render a specific component. ` Before we move forward we need to define some style as the page is unstyled since we have loaded the layout of "page". Just like we did with the tag, we can load a tag and update our styles: ` The completed file will look like this: ` The file above now includes: - A frontmatter that specifies a "page" layout - A script tag that loads an external component and defines a variable - Styles to make the page pretty - Markdown with a custom component The completed team page would render the following: Conclusion Vitepress is an extremely flexible static site generator. Its default theme provides you with everything you need to get started quickly. The ability to load external themes, enhance the current theme, and or write custom code within your page makes this tool extremely powerful. In future articles, we will discover what components are available within the Default Theme and see how you can make the most of your Vitepress site but keep on coding....

Dec 21, 2023

12 mins

VueViteVitepress

Nuxt DevTools v1.0: Redefining the Developer Experience Beyond Conventional Tools

In the ever-evolving world of web development, Nuxt.js has taken a monumental leap with the launch of Nuxt DevTools v1.0. More than just a set of tools, it's a game-changer—a faithful companion for developers. This groundbreaking release, available for all Nuxt projects and being defaulted from Nuxt v3.8 onwards, marks the beginning of a new era in developer tools. It's designed to simplify our development journey, offering unparalleled transparency, performance, and ease of use. Join me as we explore how Nuxt DevTools v1.0 is set to revolutionize our workflow, making development faster and more efficient than ever. What makes Nuxt DevTools so unique? Alright, let's start delving into the features that make this tool so amazing and unique. There are a lot, so buckle up! In-App DevTools The first thing that caught my attention is that breaking away from traditional browser extensions, Nuxt DevTools v1.0 is seamlessly integrated within your Nuxt app. This ensures universal compatibility across browsers and devices, offering a more stable and consistent development experience. This setup also means the tools are readily available in the app, making your work more efficient. It's a smart move from the usual browser extensions, making it a notable highlight. To use it you just need to press Shift + Option + D (macOS) or Shift + Alt + D (Windows): With simple keystrokes, the Nuxt DevTools v1.0 springs to life directly within your app, ready for action. This integration eliminates the need to toggle between windows or panels, keeping your workflow streamlined and focused. The tools are not only easily accessible but also intelligently designed to enhance your productivity. Pages, Components, and Componsables View The Pages, Components, and Composables View in Nuxt DevTools v1.0 are a clear roadmap for your app. They help you understand how your app is built by simply showing its structure. It's like having a map that makes sense of your app's layout, making the complex parts of your code easier to understand. This is really helpful for new developers learning about the app and experienced developers working on big projects. Pages View lists all your app's pages, making it easier to move around and see how your site is structured. What's impressive is the live update capability. As you explore the DevTools, you can see the changes happening in real-time, giving you instant feedback on your app's behavior. Components View is like a detailed map of all the parts (components) your app uses, showing you how they connect and depend on each other. This helps you keep everything organized, especially in big projects. You can inspect components, change layouts, see their references, and filter them. By showcasing all the auto-imported composables, Nuxt DevTools provides a clear overview of the composables in use, including their source files. This feature brings much-needed clarity to managing composables within large projects. You can also see short descriptions and documentation links in some of them. Together, these features give you a clear picture of your app's layout and workings, simplifying navigation and management. Modules and Static Assets Management This aspect of the DevTools revolutionizes module management. It displays all registered modules, documentation, and repository links, making it easy to discover and install new modules from the community! This makes managing and expanding your app's capabilities more straightforward than ever. On the other hand, handling static assets like images and videos becomes a breeze. The tool allows you to preview and integrate these assets effortlessly within the DevTools environment. These features significantly enhance the ease and efficiency of managing your app's dynamic and static elements. The Runtime Config and Payload Editor The Runtime Config and Payload Editor in Nuxt DevTools make working with your app's settings and data straightforward. The Runtime Config lets you play with different configuration settings in real time, like adjusting settings on the fly and seeing the effects immediately. This is great for fine-tuning your app without guesswork. The Payload Editor is all about managing the data your app handles, especially data passed from server to client. It's like having a direct view and control over the data your app uses and displays. This tool is handy for seeing how changes in data impact your app, making it easier to understand and debug data-related issues. Open Graph Preview The Open Graph Preview in Nuxt DevTools is a feature I find incredibly handy and a real time-saver. It lets you see how your app will appear when shared on social media platforms. This tool is crucial for SEO and social media presence, as it previews the Open Graph tags (like images and descriptions) used when your app is shared. No more deploying first to check if everything looks right – you can now tweak and get instant feedback within the DevTools. This feature not only streamlines the process of optimizing for social media but also ensures your app makes the best possible first impression online. Timeline The Timeline feature in Nuxt DevTools is another standout tool. It lets you track when and how each part of your app (like composables) is called. This is different from typical performance tools because it focuses on the high-level aspects of your app, like navigation events and composable calls, giving you a more practical view of your app's operation. It's particularly useful for understanding the sequence and impact of events and actions in your app, making it easier to spot issues and optimize performance. This timeline view brings a new level of clarity to monitoring your app's behavior in real-time. Production Build Analyzer The Production Build Analyzer feature in Nuxt DevTools v1.0 is like a health check for your app. It looks at your app's final build and shows you how to make it better and faster. Think of it as a doctor for your app, pointing out areas that need improvement and helping you optimize performance. API Playground The API Playground in Nuxt DevTools v1.0 is like a sandbox where you can play and experiment with your app's APIs. It's a space where you can easily test and try out different things without affecting your main app. This makes it a great tool for trying out new ideas or checking how changes might work. Some other cool features Another amazing aspect of Nuxt DevTools is the embedded full-featured VS Code. It's like having your favorite code editor inside the DevTools, with all its powerful features and extensions. It's incredibly convenient for making quick edits or tweaks to your code. Then there's the Component Inspector. Think of it as your code's detective tool. It lets you easily pinpoint and understand which parts of your code are behind specific elements on your page. This makes identifying and editing components a breeze. And remember customization! Nuxt DevTools lets you tweak its UI to suit your style. This means you can set up the tools just how you like them, making your development environment more comfortable and tailored to your preferences. Conclusion In summary, Nuxt DevTools v1.0 marks a revolutionary step in web development, offering a comprehensive suite of features that elevate the entire development process. Features like live updates, easy navigation, and a user-friendly interface enrich the development experience. Each tool within Nuxt DevTools v1.0 is thoughtfully designed to simplify and enhance how developers build and manage their applications. In essence, Nuxt DevTools v1.0 is more than just a toolkit; it's a transformative companion for developers seeking to build high-quality web applications more efficiently and effectively. It represents the future of web development tools, setting new standards in developer experience and productivity....

Dec 1, 2023

8 mins

VueNuxtJSDevToolsJavaScript

How to Create a Custom Login Command with Cypress, React, & Auth0

Auth0 is a tool for handling user authentication and account management. Cypress is a tool for writing end to end tests for your application. Getting these two technologies to work together can have a few gotchas, especially if your application is set up to have the end to end tests in a separate folder from your frontend code. Today, we’ll go over the steps you’ll need to implement so you can have a custom Cypress command to log in a user, and also let your front end code continue to work safely! --- Setup For this setup, we're making the choice to keep our end to end tests in one folder, and our front end code in a sibling folder. You don't have to do it this way. It's just the choice we've made for this project. So our folder setup has two root level folders, "cypress" and "app": ` --- React Adjustments Auth0 provides a default login form for you to use. We’ll focus on the fact that the forms use web workers to store the user’s access tokens in memory. This helps them keep that access token more secure from attackers. This is important to note for Cypress. But because Cypress does not have a way to interact with that web worker. So we need to be able to detect when our application is running the site through Cypress so we can adjust how we get the access token. We’ll need to update the way our Auth0 form saves that token based on if our app is running normally, or if it’s running through Cypress. To do this, we can add a check to the cacheLocation prop in our Auth0Provider field that wraps around our root app component. app/index.ts ` > Important note if you’re using TypeScript: > If your project is using TypeScript, there will be two more small changes you might need to make. > First, your editor may be yelling at you that it doesn’t know what Cypress means, or that it doesn’t exist on the window interface. So you can make a type file to solve this. src/types/globals.d.ts ` > Then, in the root level tsconfig file, we need to add an option to the compilerOptions section so it knows to look for this file we just made and use it. Then your editor should be happy! :) app/tsconfig.ts ` And that’s all your front end code should need to work! It’ll continue to work as expected when running your app locally or in production. But now when you run your Cypress tests, it’ll store that access token in local storage instead, so we can make use of that within our tests. --- Cypress Adjustments Now we can make our custom login command! Having a custom command for something like logging in a user that might need to be repeated before each step is super helpful. It makes it faster for your tests to get started, and doesn’t need to rely on the exact state of your UI so any UI changes you might make won’t affect this command. There’s a few different things we’ll need to handle here: - Writing the custom command itself - Making an e2e file where we’ll set up this command to run before each test - Updating the Cypress config file to know about the environment variables we’ll need - If you’re using TypeScript, you’ll also need to make a separate “namespace” file and an index file to pull all the pieces together. We’ll start with the meat of the project: making that custom command! I’ll share the whole command first. Then we’ll walk through the different sections individually to cover what’s going on with each part. The Custom Command Cypress automatically sets up a support folder for you, so you’ll likely already find a commands file in there. This will go in that file. If you don’t have it, you can create it! cypress/support/commands.ts ` The first piece to note is line 2. Cypress.Commands.add('loginWithAuth0', (username, password) => {... This is what actually tells Cypress “hey, this is a command you can use”. The name can be anything you want. I’m using “loginWithAuth0”, but you could call it “login” or “kitty” or whatever makes the most sense for your project. Just make sure you know what it means! :) Lines 3-6 are setting our the environment variables that the Auth0 call will use. Then, on line 8, we use Cypress to make the actual request to Auth0 that allows us to log in. For this use case, we’re choosing to login with a username and password, so we tell the call that we’re using the “password” type and send all the necessary environment variables for the call to work. (You can find info on what these values should be from the Auth0 docs.) Then, on lines 20 and 21, we’re starting to deal with the response we get back. If the call was successful, this should contain the information on the test user we just signed in and the access token we need for them. So we extract those values from the body of the response so we can use them. On line 22, we again use Cypress to get the browser’s window, and let us store the user access token. We'll use localStorage for this as seen on line 23. Important note here! Pay extra special attention to the way the string is set up that we’re storing in localStorage on line 24! Auth0 needs the access token to be stored in this specific manner. This is the only way it will find our token! So make sure yours is set up the same way. The rest of the code here is taking the information we got from the Auth0 call and adding it to our new localStorage value. You’ll see that on line 35 we’re parsing the user information so we have access to that, and then setting an expiration on line 40 so the token won’t last forever. And that’s it - our command is set up! Now on to the rest of the things we need to set up so we can actually use it. :) Supporting Files If you have commands that should be run before every test call, you can create an e2e file in your support folder. These are your global imports and functions that will apply to all of your Cypress test files. Here we’ll import our custom commands file and actually call our new command in a beforeEach hook, passing in the test username and password we want to use. cypress/support/e2e.ts ` > TypeScript Note: > To get the typings to work properly for your custom commands, you’ll need to do two things. > First, you’ll want to make a new file called namespace in your “support” folder. Then, you’ll want to declare the Cypress namespace in there, and set up a line for your new custom command so Cypress knows the type for it. (If you originally edited the default Cypress commands file, you’ll also want to go to the bottom of that file and remove the namespace section from it - this is replacing that.) ` > Then in your support folder, create an “index.ts” file and add your commands and namespace imports to it. ` > That should clear up any TypeScript related warnings in your files! The final piece is updating our Cypress configuration file. We need to add all the environment variables we need in here so Cypress is aware of them and we don’t have them hard coded in our files. cypress.config.ts ` Wrap Up With that in place, you should be good to go! Whenever you run your Cypress tests now, you should see that a user is automatically logged in for you so you start on the first page of your app. We hope this helps! If you run into any issues or have questions on anything, please feel free to reach out to us. Leave a comment on this post or ask in our Discord. We’ll be happy to help!...

Nov 18, 2022

6 mins

CypressTestingReact

“We were seen as amplifiers, not collaborators,” Ashley Willis, Sr. Director of Developer Relations at GitHub, on How DevRel has Changed, Open Source, and Holding Space as a Leader

Ashley Willis has seen Developer Relations evolve from being on the sidelines of the tech team to having a seat at the strategy table. In her ten years in the space, she’s done more than give great conference talks or build community—she’s helped shape what the DevRel role looks like for software providers. Now as the Senior Director of Developer Relations at GitHub, Ashley is focused on building spaces where developers feel heard, seen, and supported. > “A decade ago, we were seen as amplifiers, not collaborators,” she says. “Now we’re influencing product roadmaps and shaping developer experience end to end.” DevRel Has Changed For Ashley, the biggest shift hasn’t been the work itself—but how it’s understood. > “The work is still outward-facing, but it’s backed by real strategic weight,” she explains. “We’re showing up in research calls and incident reviews, not just keynotes.” That shift matters, but it’s not the finish line. Ashley is still pushing for change when it comes to burnout, representation, and sustainable metrics that go beyond conference ROI. > “We’re no longer fighting to be taken seriously. That’s a win. But there’s more work to do.” Talking Less as a Leader When we asked what the best advice Ashley ever received, she shared an early lesson she received from a mentor: “Your presence should create safety, not pressure.” > “It reframed how I saw my role,” she says. “Not as the one with answers, but the one who holds the space.” Ashley knows what it’s like to be in rooms where it’s hard to speak up. She leads with that memory in mind, and by listening more than talking, normalizing breaks, and creating environments where others can lead too. > “Leadership is emotional labor. It’s not about being in control. It’s about making it safe for others to lead, too.” Scaling More Than Just Tech Having worked inside high-growth companies, Ashley knows firsthand: scaling tech is one thing. Scaling trust is another. > “Tech will break. Roadmaps will shift. But if there’s trust between product and engineering, between company and community—you can adapt.” And she’s learned not to fall for premature optimization. Scale what you have. Don’t over-design for problems you don’t have yet. Free Open Source Isn’t Free There’s one myth Ashley is eager to debunk: that open source is “free.” > “Open source isn’t free labor. It’s labor that’s freely given,” she says. “And it includes more than just code. There’s documentation, moderation, mentoring, emotional care. None of it is effortless.” Open source runs on human energy. And when we treat contributors like an infinite resource, we risk burning them out, and breaking the ecosystem we all rely on. > “We talk a lot about open source as the foundation of innovation. But we rarely talk about sustaining the people who maintain that foundation.” Burnout is Not Admirable Early in her career, Ashley wore burnout like a badge of honor. She doesn’t anymore. > “Burnout doesn’t prove commitment,” she says. “It just dulls your spark.” Now, she treats rest as productive. And she’s learned that clarity is kindness—especially when giving feedback. > “I thought being liked was the same as being kind. It’s not. Kindness is honesty with empathy.” The Most Underrated GitHub Feature? Ashley’s pick: personal instructions in GitHub Copilot. Most users don’t realize they can shape how Copilot writes, like its tone, assumptions, and context awareness. Her own instructions are specific: empathetic, plainspoken, technical without being condescending. For Ashley, that helps reduce cognitive load and makes the tool feel more human. > “Most people skip over this setting. But it’s one of the best ways to make Copilot more useful—and more humane.” Connect with Ashley Willis She has been building better systems for over a decade. Whether it’s shaping Copilot UX, creating safer teams, or speaking truth about the labor behind open source, she’s doing the quiet work that drives sustainable change. Follow Ashley on BlueSky to learn more about her work, her maker projects, and the small things that keep her grounded in a fast-moving industry. Sticker Illustration by Jacob Ashley....

Apr 18, 2025

3 mins

Engineering LeadershipGitHub

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Introducing the Vue 3 and XState kit for starter.dev

Intro

What’s included

How to get started using the kit

Vue 3

Provide and Inject

Using XState

Difference between Context and State

Declaring Actions and Services

Cypress Testing

Conclusion

Linda Thompson

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