Project and Item Templates

Visual Studio Templates

It is required to have the SpecFlow Visual Studio Extension installed.

Project Template

You can find the SpecFlow Project in the New project dialog, when you search for SpecFlow.
Create new project dialog

After the normal configuration of your project (location, name, …), you will get to a step to choose your .NET version and test framework for the new project.
SpecFlow configuration for your project

Clicking on Next will create you a new project with all required NuGet packages:
Created project

Item Template

We provide various item templates:

Item Templates

.NET CLI Templates

Note: The .NET Core SDK is required to be installed in order to use project templates.

  • SpecFlow Feature File: Gherkin Feature file with an example

  • SpecFlow Feature File (Dutch/Nederlands): empty Gherkin feature file in dutch

  • SpecFlow Feature File (English): empty Gherkin feature file in english

  • SpecFlow Feature File (French/français): empty Gherkin feature file in french

  • SpecFlow Feature File (German/Deutsch): empty Gherkin feature file in german

  • SpecFlow Hooks (event bindings): template class with BeforeScenario and AfterScenario hooks

  • SpecFlow Json Configuration: template for specflow.json

  • SpecFlow Step Definition: step definitions class

  • SpecFlow+ Runner Profile (.srProfile): configuration file for SpecFlow+ Runner

Installing the Project Template

To install the project template:

  1. Open the command line interface of your choice (e.g. cmd or powershell).

  2. Execute the following command:
    dotnet new -i SpecFlow.Templates.DotNet

  3. The template is installed locally. Once the installation is complete, you can use the template to create new SpecFlow projects.

Creating a New Project from the Template

After installing the templates, you can create a new project using the following command:

dotnet new specflowproject

By default, a .NET Core project is created with SpecFlow+ Runner configured as the test runner. You can create a project for a different test runner and/or target framework using the following optional parameters:

  • framework: Determine the target framework for the project. The following options are available:

    • netcoreapp3.1 (default): .NET Core 3.1

    • net5.0: .NET 5.0

    • net461: .NET Framework 4.6.1

    • net462: .NET Framework 4.6.2

    • net47: .NET Framework 4.7

    • net471: .NET Framework 4.7.1

    • net472: .NET Framework 4.7.2

    • net48: .NET Framework 4.8

  • unittestprovider: Determines the test runner. The following options are available:

    • specflowplusrunner (default): SpecFlow+ Runner

    • xunit: XUnit

    • nunit: NUnit

    • mstest: MSTest

Example: dotnet new specflowproject --unittestprovider xunit --framework netcoreapp3.1

This creates a new project with XUnit as the unit test provider, and targetting .NET Core 3.1. The project is created with a pre-defined structure that follows best practices. The project includes a single feature file (in the Features folder) and its associated steps (in the Steps folder).

Item Templates

The template pack also includes a few item templates:

  • specflow-feature: .feature file in English

  • specflow-json: specflow.json configuration file

  • specflow-plus-profile: Default.srProfile (SpecFlow+Runner configuration)

If you have additional ideas for the templates, please open a GitHub issue here.