Enchaned unit testing, with a mock DynamoDB instance

jest-dynalite is a fork of @shelf/jest-dynamodb that allows unit tests to execute real queries against a local DynamoDB instance. It was created in an attempt to address some of the most important missing features of @shelf/jest-dynamodb, such as requiring all your tests to use a single shared database. See this issue for more motivation.

Using this jest-dynalite makes writing queries with DynamoDB very easy, your tests can really check if your data is manipulated in the way you expect it to be. This means that queries and mutations can be developed without ever having to deploy or run your application, and significantly speeds up writing code which interacts with DynamoDB.

This in turn makes your tests much more robust, because a change to a data structure or db query in your application will be reflected by failing tests, instead of using mocks to check if calls were made correctly.

This library could almost be seen as an integration test, but without the overhead of typical integration tests.

• Optionally clear tables between tests
• Isolated tables between test runners
• Ability to specify config directory
• No java requirement
• Works with both @aws-sdk/client-dynamodb and aws-sdk

From v2.0.0 jest-dynalite now uses a JavaScript file for table configuration. This change makes it possible to set the dynalite config programatically (enabling things such as reading the parameters from a cloudformation template) while also improving compatibility with jest-dynamodb. Thanks to @corollari for this change.

From v3.0.0 you can now use the preset in a monorepo. The jest-dynalite-config.js will be picked up from your jest <rootDir>, which should be the same directory as your jest config.

With the release of v3.3.0 it is now possible to use @aws-sdk/client-dynamodb instead of aws-sdk.

However, it seems that with this new version the dynamodb client connection stays active for a few seconds after your tests have finished and thus stops dynalite from being able to teardown after each test suite (test file).

Make sure you run client.destroy() on your client after every test suite to mitigate this issue. See an example here

$ yarn add jest-dynalite -D

(Make sure you have @aws-sdk/client-dynamodb or aws-sdk also installed)

Please follow the below config to setup your tests to use jest-dynalite. However, if you are looking for some example project structures, please see the examples.

Because jest has a default timeout of 5000ms per test, jest-dynalite can sometimes cause failures due to the timeout being exceeded. This can happen when there are many tests or lots of tables to create between tests.

If this happens, try increasing your test timeouts jest.setTimeout(10000). Another option is to selectively run the database only for suites which use it. Please see advanced config.

In your jest project root (next to your jest.config.js), create a jest-dynalite-config.js (or .cjs or .ts) with the tables schemas, and an optional basePort to run dynalite on:

// use export default for ts based configs
module.exports = {
  tables: [
    {
      TableName: "table",
      KeySchema: [{ AttributeName: "id", KeyType: "HASH" }],
      AttributeDefinitions: [{ AttributeName: "id", AttributeType: "S" }],
      ProvisionedThroughput: {
        ReadCapacityUnits: 1,
        WriteCapacityUnits: 1,
      },
    },
  ],
  basePort: 8000,
};

Some data can be given to exist in the table before each test:

module.exports = {
  tables: [
    {
      TableName: "table",
      KeySchema: [{ AttributeName: "id", KeyType: "HASH" }],
      AttributeDefinitions: [{ AttributeName: "id", AttributeType: "S" }],
      ProvisionedThroughput: {
        ReadCapacityUnits: 1,
        WriteCapacityUnits: 1,
      },
      data: [
        {
          id: "a",
          someattribute: "hello world",
        },
      ],
    },
  ],
  basePort: 8000,
};

Your tables can also be resolved from an optionally async function:

module.exports = {
  // Please note, this function is resolved
  // once per test file
  tables: async () => {
    const myTables = await someFunction();
    if (myTables.find((table) => ...)) {
      return someOtherFunction();
    }
    return myTables;
  },
  basePort: 8000
};

const client = new DynamoDB({
  ...yourConfig,
  ...(process.env.MOCK_DYNAMODB_ENDPOINT && {
    endpoint: process.env.MOCK_DYNAMODB_ENDPOINT,
    sslEnabled: false,
    region: "local",
  }),
});

process.env.MOCK_DYNAMODB_ENDPOINT is unqiue to each test runner.

After all your tests, make sure you destroy your client. You can even do this by adding an afterAll in a setupFilesAfterEnv file.

afterAll(() => {
  client.destroy();
});

jest.config.js

module.exports = {
  ...
  preset: "jest-dynalite"
}

The simple preset config will use the config and clear tables between tests.

Important: Only use this option if you don't have a custom testEnvironment set in your jest.config.js file.

Please see example

If you are using your own testEnvironment in your Jest configuration, then you must setup jest-dynalite manually. You should also use this manual configuration if you don't want a DynamoDB mock to run for all your tests (faster).

setupBeforeEnv.js

import { setup } from "jest-dynalite";

// You must give it a config directory
setup(__dirname);

In every test suite where you are using DynamoDB, apply import "jest-dynalite/withDb" to the top of that test suite to run the db for all the tests in the suite.

If you want the tables to exist for all your suites, create a setupAfterEnv.js file with the content:

import "jest-dynalite/withDb";

You then must add the setup files to your jest config

jest.config.js

module.exports = {
  ...
  setupFiles: ["./setupBeforeEnv.js"],
  setupFilesAfterEnv: ["./setupAfterEnv.js"]
}

If you want to be even more granular, you can start the db yourself at any point.

import { startDb, stopDb, createTables, deleteTables } from "jest-dynalite";

beforeAll(startDb);

// Create tables but don't delete them after tests
beforeAll(createTables);

// or
beforeEach(createTables);
afterEach(deleteTables);

afterAll(stopDb);

jest.config.js

module.exports = {
  ...
  testEnvironment: "jest-dynalite/environment",

  setupFilesAfterEnv: [
    "jest-dynalite/setupTables",
    // Optional (but recommended)
    "jest-dynalite/clearAfterEach"
  ]
}

This setup should be used if you want to override the default config of clearAfterEach, but still want to use the most simple configuration.

If you want to start & setup the db only once for all your suites, create a setup.js and teardown.js files with the following content:

// setup.js

import { startDb, createTables, setup } from "jest-dynalite";

module.exports = async () => {
  // You must provide a config directory
  setup(__dirname);
  await startDb();
  await createTables();
};

// teardown.js

import { stopDb, deleteTables } from "jest-dynalite";

module.exports = async () => {
  // Cleanup after tests
  await deleteTables();
  await stopDb();
};

You then must add the setup files to your jest config

jest.config.js

module.exports = {
  ...
  globalSetup: ["./setup.js"],
  globalTeardown: ["./teardown.js"],
}

IMPORTANT NOTE

Be aware that the only one instance of dynalite will start, which may cause test issues if multiple runners are editing the same data.

Clone the repo and install dependencies

yarn

Run tests

yarn test

Tests are designed as a mix of unit, integration tests, and e2e tests.

yarn test will run all unit and integration tests

Integration tests are configured under the tests directory, with jest projects used to managed testing different configurations for jest-dynalite.

yarn e2e will run e2e tests

MIT