Pushing scenario changes to Test Cases

SpecSync can synchronize scenarios and scenario execution results with Azure DevOps Test Cases. The most commonly used command to achieve this is to upload (push) the scenario changes to Test Cases that is provided using the SpecSync push command.

The SpecSync push command processed all scenarios in the local feature set (e.g. the features folder of your project), detects if there were any change since the last synchronization and updates the Test Case if necessary.

You can find all available command line options for the push command in the push command line reference. The configuration options related to push are in the synchronization section of the configuration file.

The connection between the scenario and the Test Case in Azure DevOps is established with a test case link tag. By default the link tag uses the format @tc:1234, but both the tc prefix and the separator : can be configured (with synchronization/tagPrefixSeparators and synchronization/linkLabelSeparator), so you can also have test case links that use different format, e.g. @TestCase=1234. In the documentation we use the default test case link tag format.

Depending on the changes of the scenario, the push command performs different actions in Azure DevOps as the following table shows.

Changes	Actions
The scenario is new (not yet linked to a Test Case)	A new Test Case work item is created and the scenario is tagged with a link tag (e.g. @tc:1234) to document the ID of the created Test Case.
The scenario is linked and up-to-date with the Test Case	No action is taken
The scenario has been changed since the last synchronization	The Test Case is updated with the changes. (No change in the feature file.)
The scenario has been synchronized, but since the last synchronization the Test Case has been updated.	The push command by default overwrites the changes of the Test Case fields that are maintained by SpecSync (e.g. title, steps, tags). The changes in other fields (e.g. description) are not changed. A different conflict handling method can also be configured. See Synchronization conflict resolution for details. In case you would like to preserve the changes of the fields maintained by SpecSync, you have to use the pull command first.
The scenario has been removed	SpecSync does not delete the related Test Case. If SpecSync is configured with a remote scope (recommended), the Test Case will be tagged with specsync:removed. You can review the Test Cases of this tag and delete them manually. (The tag is removed from the Test Case if the scenario is restored.) For details on how to specify the remote scope and how does SpecSync detects hand processes removed local test cases, please check the Remote scope documentation.

The SpecSync push command needs to modify the feature file when a new scenario is synchronized. The feature file change has to be preserved in the source control (commit & push), otherwise when other users perform a push, Test Case duplicates will be created.

When performing the push on a build pipeline, or in any other cases where local changes cannot be preserved, the push command has to be invoked with the --disableLocalChanges switch. More information about using SpecSync in build pipelines can be found in the Use SpecSync from build or release pipeline guide.

You can perform the push operation with the --linkOnly flag so that it only links new scenarios and does not update existing Test Cases.

SpecSync operations, including the push command supports "dry-run" mode using the --dryRun command line option. In dry-run mode, no change is made neither to Azure DevOps nor to the feature files, so you can test the impact of an operation without making an actual change.

Test Case fields updated by the push command

The push command updates certain fields of the linked Azure DevOps Test Case to represent the scenario changes as the following table shows.

Updated Test Case field	Updated with
Title	Updated based on the scenario name. By default it is set to Scenario: <scenario-name> or Scenario Outline: <scenario-outline-name>. The Scenario and Scenario Outline prefixes can be skipped, see Configuring the format of the synchronized test cases. For special situations the synchronization of the Test Case title can be omitted, see Customization: Do not synchronize title.
Steps	Updated based on the scenario steps. By default each scenario step is represented by a Test Case step, but the synchronization can be configured to use the Expected Result field of the Test Case step for the Then steps. About this and other step-related formatting option can be configured, see Configuring the format of the synchronized test cases for details. By default all Test Case steps are overwritten by the scenario steps, but you can configure SpecSync to keep certain Test Case steps based on a prefix. See details in Customization: Ignoring marked Test Case steps.
Tags	Updated based on the scenario tags. (The tags placed on the feature block are also replicated in the Test Case.) The tag synchronization can be customized with Customization: Mapping tags and Customization: Ignoring Test Case Tags.
Parameter values	The scenario outlines are synchronized to parametrized Test Cases. The values provided in the scenario outline Examples block are saved as parameter values. Multiple examples blocks are merged into one Test Case parameter value table. See Synchronizing Scenario Outlines for details.
Links	The manually edited Test Case links are never removed by SpecSync, but you can configure SpecSync to detect scenario tags that refer to an Azure DevOps work item (e.g. @bug:1234) and create Test Case links from them. See Linking Work Items using tags for details.
State	By default the push command does not change the value of the State field, but you can configure it to reset the state to a specific value (e.g. Design) whenever the Test Case is changed. See Setting Test Case State on change for details.
Area and Iteration	By default the push command does not change the value of the Area and the Iterations fields, but you can configure it initialize these fields with a configured value (e.g. MyProject\Team1) when the Test Case is initially created. See Add new Test Cases to an Area or an Iteration for details.
Automation Status	By default the push command creates the Test Cases as Not Automated. To be able to synchronize automated Test Cases (for all or for selected scenarios), you can configure SpecSync for this. See Mark Test Cases as Automated for details.
Associated Automation	For MsTest-based SpecFlow or Reqnroll scenarios, SpecSync can also configure the Associated Automation field with the test method generated by SpecFlow or Reqnroll for the scenario. This can be used for Test-suite based execution. In order to publish scenario execution results, you can also consider the SpecSync Test result publishing features that provide a more flexible solution.
Attachments	The manually uploaded Test Case attachments are never removed by SpecSync, but you can configure SpecSync to detect scenario tags that refer to attached file and upload Test Case attachments from them. See Attach files to Test Cases using tags for details.

Include synchronized Test Cases to Test Case hierarchies

SpecSync can also help you to organize the remote Test Cases into hierarchical structures. In Azure DevOps that means that it can create and maintain Test Suite hierarchies and include the Test Cases to these Test Suites according to the configured rules. The test results can also be published to such a synchronized hierarchy.

For details on how to include Test Cases to hierarchies, please check the Synchronizing Test Case hierarchies using Test Suites feature documentation.

The synchronized Test Cases can also be added to various Test Suites manually or by defining query-based or requirement-based suites in Azure DevOps.