Top all-time · #1939
Cucumber Blog
Company blog · cucumber.io/blogprogramming
Cucumber Blog is the company blog at cucumber.io, writing about programming. Since 2015, 39 different Hacker News readers have linked it 54 times, most often “Cucumber lets you write automated tests in plain language”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-24, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 3 of 33 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
Linked as the reference for Gherkin syntax and BDD tooling when people discuss plain-language specs and test automation. Most comments cite it as a source, and a few single out the Gherkin reference and the Example Mapping post.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 33 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Cucumber is a tool for running automated acceptance tests, written in plain language. Because they're written in plain language, they can be read by anyone on your team, improving communication, collaboration and trust.
Most-linked posts?
- Cucumber lets you write automated tests in plain language8 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2015-06-10
- /docs/gherkin/reference/4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-05-28
- Cucumber: BDD Testing and Collaboration Tools3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-01-10
- /docs3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-09-12
- Get more out of user stories with Example Mapping3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-12-15
- /docs/gherkin/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-04-18
- /docs/guides/overview/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-08-31
- The Surprisingly Inclusive Benefits of Mob Programming2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-06-20
What Hacker News says?
> The line you wrote does not describe a feature. I'm describing a scenario as implemented in a gherkin feature file. A feature is tracked by one or more scenarios. https://cucumber.io/docs/gherkin/reference/ > Do you seriously think there is no higher level than given/when/thens? You tell me which higher level you have in mind.
Comment linking /docs/gherkin/reference/
on “Enough AI copilots, we need AI HUDs”Submitted Announcing cucumber-electron as a story · 76 points
HN discussionFrom another comment (thread moves fast): The next big thing is ATDD - Acceptance Test Driven Development. This is implemented using frameworks like Cucumber[1], in which test scenarios are: 1. Described at the feature level 2. Described together with, and signed off by, the business stakeholders 3. Described in a structured format, which can be implemented in code ('given ... when ... then' format) The advantages t…
Comment linking /
on “Is TDD Dead? (2014)”Submitted Cucumber lets you write automated tests in plain language as a story · 74 points
HN discussionThe next big thing is ATDD - Acceptance Test Driven Development. This is implemented using frameworks like Cucumber[1], in which test scenarios are: 1. Described at the feature level 2. Described together with, and signed off by, the business stakeholders 3. Described in a structured format, which can be implemented in code ('given ... when ... then' format) The advantages this gives are huge. It is essentially the…
Comment linking /
on “Is TDD Dead? (2014)”Submitted Get more out of user stories with Example Mapping as a story · 8 points
HN discussionYears ago I was at a trading firm where I needed to write a test suite for our order entry system (the software that sends orders to a stock exchange). Tests could become quite large because I had to track the sequence of acknowledgments and executions from the test exchange. The tests would have been a real pain to write in C++, so I created my own language! It was inspired by both Expect and Cucumber. https://en.w…
Comment linking /docs
on “Do you have a problem? Write a compiler”Submitted How would you run a software company if you had enough time? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionNo, not Scratch :P I think programmers should be trusted to write code as text, but the IDE should in some way help visualise how data flows through the system. Intentional programming seems interesting. Reminds me a little of BDD frameworks like Cucumber ( https://cucumber.io/docs )
Comment linking /docs
on “How I Switched to Plan 9”Submitted Cucumber Electron – Cucumber Podcast as a story · 4 points
HN discussionhttps://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2015/04/17/modern-extreme-prog... XP teams, with pair and mob programming. Spacious team areas with big TVs for coding in pairs or mobs. 20% time for learning and to foster bottom-up innovation https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2018/01/29/gold-cards/ Worth noting all these practices can be done remotely too https://cucumber.io/blog/2018/06/20/inclusive-benefits-of-mo... Also notable what wa…
Comment linking /blog/2018/06/20/inclusive-benefits-of-mob-programming
on “Ask HN: What company environment has enabled your best work?”Submitted Cucumber Ltd Acquired by SmartBear as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThey are talking about Cucumber, a behavior driven development platform. Gherkin is a syntax for writing test cases: https://cucumber.io/docs/gherkin/ Very neat, seems quite appropriate for the way people currently work with LLMs.
Comment linking /docs/gherkin/
on “Show HN: A working Nintendo in ~1GB of Qwen weights”Submitted Our favourite Cucumber anti-patterns as a story · 3 points
HN discussion"Approval" / "Golden Master" / "Snapshot" / "Characterization" testing can be very helpful. They all seem to be names for more or less the same idea. The first time a test runs successfully it auto captures the output as a file. This is the "approved" output and is committed with the code or saved in whatever test system you use. The next time the test runs, it captures the new output and auto compares it with the a…
Comment linking /blog/podcast/approval-testing/
on “Diff Algorithms”Submitted Writing Better Gherkin as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGlad that you found this to be useful! Android includes the Espresso UI testing framework [1]. Essentially, you can specify matchers that compare your expected values or predicates against an actual object identified by an R.id identifier. It's very powerful (since you can write your own custom matchers) but can be cumbersome to use [2]. [1] https://developer.android.com/training/testing/espresso/basi... [2] Example…
Comment linking /docs/guides/overview/
on “Ask HN: What problem are you close to solving and how can we help?”Submitted Eviscerating the Test Automation Pyramid as a story · 2 points
HN discussionHave you seen Cucumber? https://cucumber.io/docs It's a system that attempts to enable specifications for a software product to be written in a way that can be parsed by an automated testing framework. In theory, you carefully say what you want the software to do in given scenarios, human developers understand the spec as-is, and automated tests can read and execute the spec as-is as a test. I have no professional e…
Comment linking /docs
on “Attempto Controlled English”Submitted Running really fast tests (podcast) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> Behavioural driven development (BDD) https://cucumber.io/ is a particularly awesome idea for specifying behavior. really want to try it out for a project sometime: the idea is to write the spec in these domain-specific "gherkin" files. i find it comparatively difficult to get get buy-in on collaborating on anything machine-readable, however, unless it's from people who are comfortable with general-purpose programm…
Comment linking /
on “Lessons Learned from Software Rewrites”Submitted Why diversity at conferences is important as a story · 2 points
HN discussionResources, none that I'm aware of. I generally think this is an OK way to look at testing [1], though I think it goes too far if you completely adopt their framework. The boil down the tests I like to see. Structure them with "Given/when/then" statements. You don't need a framework for this, just make method calls with whatever unit test framework you are using. Keep the methods small, don't do a whole lot of "then"…
Comment linking /docs/bdd/
on “Testing is better than data structures and algorithms”Submitted [Podcast] What Makes a Great Product Owner? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe solution to a “complex” problem is only knowable after the fact, versus merely complicated problem which is knowable before the fact. Any sufficiently useful computer program is typically “complex”, though not always. That said it is still incredibly helpful for everyone to agree on what we’re building in the present iteration/sprint. You mentioned BDD which can be very helpful when paired with a team practice s…
Comment linking /blog/2015/12/08/example-mapping-introduction
on “Ask HN: Better tools for the software requirements / scoping phase?”Submitted Podcast – Can agile actually work in big organisations? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionAs someone that spends most of their days at the design/scoping phase, then watching the product go into development where it encounters constant misunderstandings and gotchas that the customer never told us about or never realised themselves, I completely agree that there is a huge disconnect between the scoping and requirements phase and the build phase. I almost have guilt over feeling like my work of design and…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Better tools for the software requirements / scoping phase?”Submitted Cucumber: BDD Testing and Collaboration Tools as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI second this. Additionally, if the choices are still overhelming and you have an idea of what you really want to build, I would suggest trying something like writing cucumber features[1] and running them in a headless browser. I'm sure many people will tell you about their negative experiences and how writing these kinds of "tests" are slow or misleading or a waste of time. But I would say that deciding what your s…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?”Submitted Understanding Screenplay as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
