Search Inside Feature Files
- Dmytro Stasyuk
Several attributes of a Feature as well as its text become searchable using JQL. Being able to search for attributes can be particularly useful for improving your Sprint and Backlog Jira boards.
Search for Feature Text
The name of the field that you need to use is 'Feature.content'. Navigate to the Search for Issues page and use the '~' (tilde) character to search for the required text.
Depending on your preferences menu options the Feature panel might be loaded in Gherkin Text Editor mode rather than Example Mapping, so you will see textual representation rather like below.
Search for issues with Features
Query below can be used to find all Jira issues where the Feature panel has at least some text
Feature.content IS NOT EMPTY
Search for Feature Attributes
The following list of attributes are searchable with JQL:
Feature.userStories
Type - Number
Description: how many User Stories the Feature contains. A User Story in this case means that there are 3 common keywords: ‘As a', ‘I want to’ and ‘So that’ after the Feature keyword and there is some text after each of these keywords. 'In order to’ keyword can be used instead of ‘So that’.
Feature.userStories = 0
Could be used to identify Jira issues that have some Feature text but are missing key pieces of information such as who the user or the stakeholder is for whom the story is valuable and/or why exactly the story is needed, or in other words ‘As I' or 'So that’ keywords are missing.
Feature.userStories > 1
Could be used to identify Features that contain more than one User Story and therefore should be split into further Jira issues.
Feature.questions
Type - Number
Description: total number of questions the Feature contains. Questions are comment lines prefixed with “Q:“ keyword, see more in Questions & Answers.
Feature.questions = 0
Could be used to identify Jira issues that are potentially completely clear to the development team and therefore ready to go into the Sprint Backlog or maybe those which have not been discussed yet at all.
Feature.unansweredQuestions
Type - Number
Description: total number of unanswered questions, i.e. those that do not have the 'A:' keyword on line below, see more in Questions & Answers.
Feature.unansweredQuestions > 0
Could be used to identify Jira issues that need further information before they could be developed.
Combine attributes
You can combine Feature attributes in the same search query to give you more precise results
Feature.questions > 0 AND Feature.unansweredQuestions = 0
Could be used to better identify Jira issues that have been discussed with the team and have had all the questions answered and perhaps are ready to go into the Sprint backlog.
Feature.rules
Type - Number
Description: total number of Rules the Feature contains. There needs to be some text after the Rule keyword in order for the Rule to count towards this number.
Feature.rules > 0
Could be used to find Jira issues which have at least some Acceptance Criteria entered. Rules in Features files essentially are the acceptance criteria.
Feature.leastScenariosInRule
Type - Number
Description: lowest number of Scenarios contained in any Rule inside the overall Feature
Feature.leastScenariosInRule = 0
Could be used to find Issues where there is at least one Rule without any Scenarios
This same query will also include any issues where there is a Rule with Scenarios however there is no text after the Rule keyword (i.e. an empty Rule card), meaning the Rule is not yet defined.
Feature.mostScenariosInRule
Type - Number
Description: highest number of Scenarios contained in any Rule inside the overall Feature
Feature.mostScenariosInRule > 5
Could be used to find Issues where there are perhaps too many Scenarios in a Rule which could mean that some of the examples could be potentially moved under a new not yet captured rule.
Feature.scenarios
Type - Number
Description: total number of Scenarios the Feature contains. All valid scenario keywords are taken into account i.e. Scenario, Example, Scenario Outline or Scenario Template.
Feature.scenarios = 0
Could be used to find Jira issues that do not yet have any examples of behaviour
Feature.leastStepsInScenario
Type - Number
Description: lowest number of Steps contained in any of the Scenarios inside the overall Feature
Feature.leastStepsInScenario = 0
Could be used to find Jira issues where there is at least one Scenario which hasn’t been discussed to the level of concrete steps that would demonstrate the desired behaviour.
Feature.mostStepsInScenario
Type - Number
Description: highest number of Steps contained in any of the Scenarios inside the overall Feature
Feature.mostStepsInScenario > 5
Could be used to find Jira issues that have Scenarios with potentially too many steps which could mean that the Steps were used to describe ‘how’ functionally was implemented and not ‘what’ behavior was required which is an anti pattern in BDD.
Feature.warnings
Type - Number
Description: total number of warnings the Feature contains according to the syntax of Gherkin
Feature.warnings > 0
Could be used to find indentation warnings for example
Or missing data table values
Feature.errors
Type - Number
Description: total number of errors the Feature contains according to the syntax of Gherkin
Feature.errors > 0
Could be used to find incorrectly entered text
Or structurally incorrect data tables
Feature.lines
Type - Number
Description: total lines in a Feature
Feature.lines > 100
Could be used to find overly long Features that should perhaps be split
Feature.lastUpdatedDate
Type - Date
Description: the time and date the last time the Feature was updated by any user
Feature.lastUpdatedDate > startOfWeek()
Could be used to find all Jira issues where the Feature was updated since the start of the week
Feature.lastUpdatedDate > startOfDay(9h)
Could be used to find all Jira issues where Feature has been updated since 9:00AM of current day
Feature.lastUpdatedBy
Type - User
Description: the user who last updated the Feature
Feature.lastUpdatedBy = currentUser()
Could be used to find all Jira issues where I (current user) was the last to update the Feature
Feature.updatedBy
Type - User
Description: any user that made at least one update to the Feature
Feature.updatedBy = currentUser()
Could be used to find all Jira issues where I (current user) made at least one update to the Feature
Built-in Editor Search
When in Gherkin Text Editor mode use the toolbar button highlighted below to open the built-in search pop up box in the top right of the editor. Type a search phrase and press the Enter key - match results will get highlighted in yellow.
Folded sections are also searched
Using built-in search is superior to using the standard browser find functionally in that it also searches in lines that are currently folded
