@cypress/schematic: ng e2e does not start server

Current behavior

When adding the schematic to a new CLI project, then ng e2e does not start the server.

Desired behavior

ng e2e should start the server behind the scene as the @briebug/cypress-schematic was (and the built-in Protractor as well).

Test code to reproduce

npx @angular/cli@12.0.0 new cypress-schematic-v12 --defaults
cd cypress-schematic-v12
ng add @cypress/schematic
ng e2e

Versions

Cypress: 7.3.0 @cypress/schematic: 1.0.3

[cexbrayat]

@admah Thank you for your answer.

I think this is a rather surprising change as most schematics work the other way around (default e2e schematic for protractor, the cypress one from Briebug, the one for webdriverio). ng e2e usually starts the server and that’s what your run on CI (with a --headless parameter). Note that ng e2e does start a server on a different port if you want to, or if the port is already taken, so it’s usually fairly easy to use locally.

This will probably be a surprise to most Angular developers who migrate from Protractor or from the original cypress schematic. My 2 cents is that I would stick to the default behavior of the ecosystem.

If you keep it that way, it should probably be clearly stated in the documentation. It was a bit weird for me because the configuration of the e2e property in angular.json does refer to devServerTarget so that was clear in mind that it should start the server. Maybe that’s unnecessary then, and would need to be fixed as well.

[admah]

You’re welcome @cexbrayat! I’m looking over the PR now. Thank you!