as a manual tester
You've shadowed. You've practiced. Now it's your name on the test plan.
→
in automation
This project is the portfolio piece: a complete framework a hiring manager can clone, run, and be impressed by.
Build a complete automation framework for saucedemo.com, from empty folder to green CI badge. Everything required has been taught; nothing new appears here. The requirements are the checklist an interviewer would love to see:
Functional coverage — 8 tests minimum
- UI (6+): valid login (smoke) · invalid logins data-driven, 4+ rows · add-to-cart updates badge · full checkout flow ends in "Thank you for your order!" · product sorting data-driven · remove-from-cart.
- API (2+): a GET with JSON-path assertions and a POST with extract-and-print, against JSONPlaceholder.
Engineering requirements
- Page Object Model — zero locators in test classes (LoginPage, ProductsPage, CartPage, CheckoutPage)
- BaseTest with lifecycle + screenshot-on-failure TestWatcher
- DriverFactory + config.properties (+
-D overrides); no hardcoded URLs or credentials anywhere
- Explicit waits only; @Tag("smoke") on the critical path; parallel classes enabled
- Git history with meaningful messages (not one giant "final commit")
- GitHub Actions: smoke on push, full suite nightly, failure artifacts uploaded
- A README that gets a stranger from clone to green in three commands
The whole brief is also a tickable file: capstone-checklist.md.
Definition of done
acceptance criteria
✓ mvn test passes locally, headless and headed
✓ Actions tab shows a green run on the latest commit
✓ A deliberately broken test produces: red run + screenshot artifact
✓ README's three commands work on a machine that isn't yours
Scope discipline is part of the grade. The temptation is 25 tests. Resist — Suite 00 taught you why. Eight excellent tests demonstrating every pattern beat twenty-five mediocre ones, and the interviewer reading your repo can tell the difference in ninety seconds.
⚡ exercise · set up the shell
- Create repo
saucedemo-automation-framework on GitHub (public — it's your portfolio).
- Locally: fresh Maven project with the Suite 07 folder layout, pom with selenium 4.45.0 / junit 5.11.4 / rest-assured 6.0.0.
- First commit: "Project skeleton: structure, dependencies, config". The build must pass with zero tests.
key takeaways
- The capstone is a portfolio repo: 8+ excellent tests, every course pattern, green CI.
- Zero locators in tests, zero hardcoded config — the two instant credibility checks.
- Scope discipline is being assessed too.