visit

Visit a remote URL.

Best Practice

We recommend setting a baseUrl when using cy.visit().

Read about best practices here.

Syntax

cy.visit(url)
cy.visit(url, options)
cy.visit(options)

Usage

Correct Usage

cy.visit('http://localhost:3000')
cy.visit('/') // visits the baseUrl
cy.visit('index.html') // visits the local file "index.html"
cy.visit('./pages/hello.html')

Arguments

url (String)

The URL to visit.

Cypress will prefix the URL with the baseUrl configured in your network options if you've set one.

If there is no baseUrl set, you may specify the relative path of an html file, and Cypress will serve this file automatically using built-in static server. The path is relative to the root directory of the project. Note that the file:// prefix is not needed.

options (Object)

Pass in an options object to control the behavior of cy.visit().

You can also set all cy.visit() commands' pageLoadTimeout and baseUrl globally in configuration.

Yields

• cy.visit() 'yields the window object after the page finishes loading'

Let's confirm the window.navigator.language after visiting the site:

cy.visit('/') // yields the window object
  .its('navigator.language') // yields window.navigator.language
  .should('equal', 'en-US') // asserts the expected value

Examples

URL

Visit a local server running on http://localhost:8000

cy.visit() resolves when the remote page fires its load event.

cy.visit('http://localhost:8000')

Options

Change the default timeout

// Wait 30 seconds for page 'load' event
cy.visit('/index.html', { timeout: 30000 })

Add basic auth headers

Cypress will automatically apply the right authorization headers if you're attempting to visit an application that requires Basic Authentication.

Provide the username and password in the auth object. Then all subsequent requests matching the origin you're testing will have these attached at the network level.

cy.visit('https://www.acme.com/', {
  auth: {
    username: 'wile',
    password: 'coyote',
  },
})

You can also provide the username and password directly in the URL.

// this is the same thing as providing the auth object
cy.visit('https://wile:[email protected]')

Cypress will automatically attach this header at the network proxy level, outside of the browser. Therefore you will not see this header in the Dev Tools.

Provide an onBeforeLoad callback function

onBeforeLoad is called as soon as possible, before your page has loaded all of its resources. Your scripts will not be ready at this point, but it's a great hook to potentially manipulate the page.

cy.visit('http://localhost:3000/#dashboard', {
  onBeforeLoad: (contentWindow) => {
    // contentWindow is the remote page's window object
  },
})

Check out our example recipes using cy.visit()'s onBeforeLoad option to:

• Bootstraping your App
• Set a token to localStorage for login during Single Sign On
• Stub window.fetch

Provide an onLoad callback function

onLoad is called once your page has fired its load event. All of the scripts, stylesheets, html and other resources are guaranteed to be available at this point.

cy.visit('http://localhost:3000/#/users', {
  onLoad: (contentWindow) => {
    // contentWindow is the remote page's window object
    if (contentWindow.angular) {
      // do something
    }
  },
})

Add query paramaters

You can provide query parameters as an object to cy.visit() by passing qs to options.

// visits http://localhost:3500/users?page=1&role=admin
cy.visit('http://localhost:3500/users', {
  qs: {
    page: '1',
    role: 'admin',
  },
})

The parameters passed to qs will be merged into existing query parameters on the url.

// visits http://example.com/users?page=1&admin=true
cy.visit('http://example.com/users?page=1', {
  qs: { admin: true },
})

Submit a form

To send a request that looks like a user submitting an HTML form, use a POST method with a body containing the form values:

cy.visit({
  url: 'http://localhost:3000/cgi-bin/newsletterSignup',
  method: 'POST',
  body: {
    name: 'George P. Burdell',
    email: '[email protected]',
  },
})

Notes

Redirects

Visit will automatically follow redirects

// we aren't logged in, so our web server
// redirected us to /login
cy.visit('http://localhost:3000/admin')
cy.url().should('match', /login/)

Protocol

Protocol can be omitted from common hosts

Cypress automatically prepends the http:// protocol to common hosts. If you're not using one of these 3 hosts, then make sure to provide the protocol.

cy.visit('localhost:3000') // Visits http://localhost:3000
cy.visit('0.0.0.0:3000') // Visits http://0.0.0.0:3000
cy.visit('127.0.0.1:3000') // Visits http://127.0.0.1:3000

Web Server

Cypress can optionally act as your web server

Cypress will automatically attempt to serve your files if you don't provide a host and baseUrl is not defined. The path should be relative to your project's root folder (where the cypress.json file is generated by default).

Having Cypress serve your files is useful in smaller projects and example apps, but isn't recommended for production apps. It is always better to run your own server and provide the url to Cypress.

cy.visit('app/index.html')

Visit local file when baseUrl is set

If you have baseUrl set, but need to visit a local file in a single test or a group of tests, disable the baseUrl using per-test configuration. Imagine our cypress.json file:

{
  "baseUrl": "https://example.cypress.io"
}

The first test visits the baseUrl, while the second test visits the local file.

it('visits base url', () => {
  cy.visit('/')
  cy.contains('h1', 'Kitchen Sink')
})

it('visits local file', { baseUrl: null }, () => {
  cy.visit('index.html')
  cy.contains('local file')
})

Tip: because visiting every new domain requires the Test Runner window reload, we recommend putting the above tests in separate spec files.

Prefixes

Visit is automatically prefixed with baseUrl

Configure baseUrl in the your configuration file (cypress.json by default) to prevent repeating yourself in every cy.visit() command.

{
  "baseUrl": "http://localhost:3000/#/"
}

cy.visit('dashboard') // Visits http://localhost:3000/#/dashboard

Window

Visit will always yield the remote page's window object when it resolves

cy.visit('index.html').then((contentWindow) => {
  // contentWindow is the remote page's window object
})

User agent

Trying to change the User-Agent? You can set the userAgent as a configuration value in your configuration file.

Routing

Prevent requests before a remote page initially loads

One common scenario Cypress supports is visiting a remote page and also preventing any Ajax requests from immediately going out.

You may think this works:

// this code may not work depending on implementation
cy.visit('http://localhost:8000/#/app')
cy.intercept('/users/**', { fixture: 'users' })

But if your app makes a request upon being initialized, the above code will not work. cy.visit() will resolve once its load event fires. The cy.intercept() command is not processed until after cy.visit() resolves.

Many applications will have already begun routing, initialization, and requests by the time the cy.visit() in the above code resolves. Therefore creating a cy.intercept() route will happen too late, and Cypress will not process the requests.

Luckily Cypress supports this use case. Reverse the order of the commands:

// this code is probably what you want
cy.intercept('/users/**', {...})
cy.visit('http://localhost:8000/#/app')

Cypress will automatically apply the routes to the very next cy.visit() and does so immediately before any of your application code runs.

Rules

Requirements

• cy.visit() requires being chained off of cy .
• cy.visit() requires the response to be content-type: text/html .
• cy.visit() requires the response code to be 2xx after following redirects.
• cy.visit() requires the load load event to eventually fire.

Assertions

• cy.visit() will automatically wait for assertions you have chained to pass

Timeouts

• cy.visit() can time out waiting for the page to fire its load event.
• cy.visit() can time out waiting for assertions you've added to pass.

Command Log

Visit example application in a beforeEach

beforeEach(() => {
  cy.visit('https://example.cypress.io/commands/viewport')
})

The commands above will display in the Command Log as:

When clicking on visit within the command log, the console outputs the following:

History

See also

• cy.go()
• cy.reload()
• cy.request()
• Recipe: Bootstrapping your App
• Recipe: Logging In - Single Sign on
• Recipe: Stubbing window.fetch