Binding Feature Testing as an alternative to specflow

[wendellmva]

🎯 Goal

Document the overall setup and structure of the repository so contributors understand:

• How the library is organized
• How the reporting logic works
• How the self-validating tests assert the coverage output

This will serve as an onboarding reference.

---

🟢 Project Overview

The solution has three main parts:

1️⃣ Library (LowlandTech.Testing.Features)

• Provides the core test framework:
  • [Scenario], [Then], [TaskId], [UseCaseId], [NodeId]
  • WhenTestingFor<T>
  • WhenUsingDatabase<TContext>
• Allows users to write BDD-style tests in pure C# with rich metadata.

2️⃣ Reporter (AssemblyCoverageExtensions)

• Contains extension methods on Assembly:
  • GenerateCoverageReport(outputPath, reportTitle)
    • Generates Markdown coverage
  • GenerateCoverageReportAsync(...)
• Formats:
  • Scenario codes
  • Titles
  • Given/When/Then text
  • UAC codes
  • Tags (NodeId, TaskId, UseCaseId)

3️⃣ Tests (LowlandTech.Testing.Features.Tests)

• Contains meta tests to validate that the coverage generator itself works.
• Example test classes:
  • ScenarioWithCodeAndTitle
  • ScenarioWithNodeId
  • ScenarioWithTaskId
  • ScenarioWithUseCaseId
• A special test (CoverageReportTests) generates coverage.md and asserts it contains all expected strings.

---

🟢 Setup Instructions

1️⃣ Build the library

From the solution root:

dotnet build

This compiles LowlandTech.Testing.Features.

---

2️⃣ Write feature tests

Add test classes like:

[Scenario(
    "VCHIP-4001-SC001",
    "Simple scenario title",
    "Given a simple context",
    "When an action occurs",
    "Then an outcome is expected")]
[TaskId("VCHIP-4001-TK001")]
[UseCaseId("VCHIP-4001-UC001")]
[NodeId("vy.test.example")]
public class ScenarioWithAllMetadata : WhenTestingFor<int>
{
    protected override int For() => 0;
    protected override void When() { }

    [Fact]
    [Then("Outcome happened", "VCHIP-4001-UAC001")]
    public void ShouldBeTrue() { 0.ShouldBe(0); }
}

This is what drives the generated report.

---

3️⃣ Generate the coverage report

Either:

• From the standalone CLI tool:

coverage-tool ./bin/Debug/net8.0/LowlandTech.Testing.Features.Tests.dll ./COVERAGE.md "My Project Feature Coverage"

or:

• Programmatically in tests:

var assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
assembly.GenerateCoverageReport("coverage.md", "My Project Coverage");

---

4️⃣ Validate the output in tests

In CoverageReportTests:

[Fact]
public void ItGeneratesCoverageReportContainingAllMetadata()
{
    var assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
    assembly.GenerateCoverageReport("coverage.md", "Test Coverage");
    var report = File.ReadAllText("coverage.md");

    report.ShouldContain("VCHIP-4001-SC001");
    report.ShouldContain("VCHIP-4001-UAC001");
    report.ShouldContain("VCHIP-4001-TK001");
    report.ShouldContain("VCHIP-4001-UC001");
    report.ShouldContain("vy.test.example");
}

✅ This proves that all metadata appears as expected.

---

🟢 Directory Structure

/src/
  LowlandTech.Testing.Features/
    - Attributes/
    - Base/
    - Reporter/
      AssemblyCoverageExtensions.cs
  LowlandTech.Testing.Features.Tests/
    ScenarioWithCodeAndTitle.cs
    ScenarioWithNodeId.cs
    ScenarioWithTaskId.cs
    ScenarioWithUseCaseId.cs
    CoverageReportTests.cs
/tools/
  LowlandTech.CoverageTool/
    Program.cs

---

🟢 Future Enhancements

• Add HTML export in GenerateCoverageReport
• Support .feature file generation for SpecFlow compatibility
• Allow optional YAML frontmatter for metadata
• Snapshot testing the entire report content

---

✅ Please reference this issue whenever creating new scenarios or extending the reporting functionality.