What is the status of this project?

[MisinformedDNA]

There haven't been any commits in 8 months.

[DomZZ]

This is a great question since we invest a lot on writing specflow tests internally ...

[ronaldbosma]

I've sent a similar question to info@specflow.org two weeks ago, but I haven't received any response.

I was surprised when I registered for SpecFlow+LivingDoc and received an email on behalf of @SabotageAndi, who has left Tricentis several months ago. Additionally, the SpecFlow Community has also been quiet for a while, with no responses.

[mbhoek]

We asked @SabotageAndi in the Discord channel what's up with the project several months ago and he indicated he did not know, other than that he moved on and @gasparnagy isn't paid by Tricentis anymore to do work on SpecFlow. LinkedIn pages of several other developers on the SpecFlow team seem to indicate that they have moved on as well in or around March of this year. None of the emails sent to Tricentis were answered thus far.

Not sure what this all means, but it does paint a bleak picture.

[SabotageAndi]

Yeah, sorry. I have no clue what Tricentis is doing with SpecFlow. As I wrote on Discord I tried to start a handover of it to other people, but it didn't go anywhere.

I've sent a similar question to info@specflow.org two weeks ago, but I haven't received any response.

Yeah, I was the last one who monitored that address.

I was surprised when I registered for SpecFlow+LivingDoc and received an email on behalf of @SabotageAndi, who has left Tricentis several months ago.

Thanks for the info. When I left I told them to change that. I will remind them again to do that.

I have still some friends at Tricentis. I will contact them. Perhaps they can nudge the people in charge to say something.

[gasparnagy]

Many people, teams and projects use SpecFlow, including my own projects, so I don't think we have to worry about the future existence of it.

I think it is rather the timing and the way of handling is unclear.

SpecFlow is an open-source project, but Tricentis owns the branding (domain name, nuget package keys, logos, etc.), so drastic actions, like forking would require to rename the project which is not very convinient for the people. But this is possible and I will make it if necessary.

In a few weeks (when people are back from vacation) I will start again somehow finding a person at Tricentis who can provide any info on their plans and based on the result we will find a solution. (If you feel like you can help in this, please send me a message.)

Nevertheless it is good to know that many people caring about the product. Please hold on, and feel free to share your thoughts here.

[peitschie]

@gasparnagy just wanted to say your update is very welcome! SpecFlow is a great library, and I'd hate to see it die due to neglect by Tricentis (especially when the source code is right here!)

Very interested in any progress you make 🙂

Thanks to both yourself and @SabotageAndi for your continued support and interaction with the community. It's very much appreciated!

[huskysox]

This thread is just what I was looking for! Our organization is looking to take a quick jump to .Net7 and then to .NET 8 soon. I would hate to have to remove the functionality of Specflow from our test implemenation. @gasparnagy We all look forward to any updates you might be able to find!

[andrewharry]

Any updates on this @gasparnagy ? I would greatly appreciate your efforts if you could get a 'proof of life' etc

[gasparnagy]

I was trying to collect further adwises on how to proceed, and I think I am ready to move on. I will come up with a proposal draft with @SabotageAndi and send it to Tricentis in a few days. I will keep you updated.

[gasparnagy]

I had a call with Tricentis today and we've discussed the status of the project. They are now going to check the options to bring more activity to the project and we continue the discussion in ~2w time. The discussion was positive and I'm pretty sure it will lead to a good outcome. I will keep you informed.

[gasparnagy]

I will keep you informed.

The next meeting with Tricentis is scheduled for 9th October.

[CRohm42]

Our team "hitched our wagon" to SpecFlow and is hopeful for it's future. Thanks @gasparnagy and @SabotageAndi !

[genne5]

@gasparnagy: It's been a week since your meeting. Is there any news?

[gasparnagy]

@genne5 They did not show up in the meeting... :( I've tried to reschedule it with no success so far.

[Code-Grump]

Disappointing. Do we have any idea what Tricentis thoughts are at this time?

[gasparnagy]

@Code-Grump I agree. I don't have a clear view on what is happening, have some ideas, but only speculation...

[SirDavvie]

Well SpecFlow doesn't drive revenue for Tricentis. They've also dropped it from many of their recent presentations where they show off their other [profitable] solutions.

[gasparnagy]

Update: I've got a new appointment for the 24th Oct.

[DiogoRoloOS]

Was the meeting successful this time?

[gasparnagy]

Update: We had the meeting yesterday evening. They informed me (us) that now the awareness has been raised that they need to act to keep the project in healthy state. They currently considering different options on how this should happen, but this should be also decided within a few weeks.

We also discussed that whatever the chosen option will be, they will also consider what temporary/immediate steps are required until the selected solution is implemented. For this I started to make a list, that currently looks like this. Please feel free to comment here if anything else should be added.

• Make sure that the build system works
• Release v4.0 (with the current state, maybe fix critical issues if threre are any, see below)
• Triage issues and pull requests created recently (e.g. this year) and classify them accordingly.

If you have any open issue that is related to the SpecFlow v4.0 beta release and you think it must be considered before release, please also comment here.

[Code-Grump]

I've been looking to get this feature included into the next major version of SpecFlow for some time: https://github.com/SpecFlowOSS/SpecFlow/pull/1983

[jrod567]

Thanks so much for the info Gaspar and keeping all of us up to date. That definitely sounds like a great place to start - any activity at this point is certainly welcome.

I'll throw my own selfish plug though - Scenario level parallel exec is definitely a big one for us: https://github.com/SpecFlowOSS/SpecFlow/issues/2225

[CRohm42]

That is great news, thanks again @gasparnagy !

[Pressacco]

Thank you for the update @gasparnagy, much appreciated

[gasparnagy]

@jrod567 The scenario-level parallel access is a valid topic, but that one is a bigger chunk, so I would not delay releasing v4.0 for that. We can ask to prioritize that once the things are rolling. But I will keep that in mind anyway.

[sudgarre]

@gasparnagy First of all, I would like to thank you for supporting the users of specflow community.

From my perspectives, below issues can be considered to use powerful specflow+ runner.

• Support specflow+ runner with latest .NET version. Currently it works only with .NET Core 5.0
• Resolve issues with using Selenium Manager & specflow+ runner in tests. Currently Selenium Manager fails here.

[SabotageAndi]

@sudgarre SpecFlow+ Runner is retired for more than 1 1/2 years. See blogpost: https://specflow.org/using-specflow/the-retirement-of-specflow-runner/

And this was when I was still at Tricentis. I wrote the blogpost. So I am pretty sure Tricentis will not resurrect the SpecFlow+ Runner. All the points why we did this, are still valid. Nothing changed in the meantime.

[bitcoder]

It's a pitty to see the project getting into this state; it's something that doesn't surprise given previous record. Hope for better days for this project or anything that borns from it! Maintaining an open-source project is not easy; requires work and commitment. For any user of the project, it's a risk to be clear. Some Xray users wanted a proper integration with SpecFlow using the common Cucumber JSON format but unfortunately they found out that this was not going to be supported anymore, from one day to the other. Anyway, best of luck for the team supporting this project here onwards.

[gasparnagy]

Note to self: We would also need soon:

• Cucumber Expression support for the Rider SpecFlow plugin
• Cucumber Expression and Rule support in LivingDoc generator
• Make LivingDoc generator work with more recent .NET versions

[ThomasHeijtink]

Yeah, sorry. I have no clue what Tricentis is doing with SpecFlow. As I wrote on Discord I tried to start a handover of it to other people, but it didn't go anywhere.

I've sent a similar question to info@specflow.org two weeks ago, but I haven't received any response.

Yeah, I was the last one who monitored that address.

I was surprised when I registered for SpecFlow+LivingDoc and received an email on behalf of @SabotageAndi, who has left Tricentis several months ago.

Thanks for the info. When I left I told them to change that. I will remind them again to do that.

I have still some friends at Tricentis. I will contact them. Perhaps they can nudge the people in charge to say something.

@SabotageAndi We are still receiving emails in your name. Unless you have come to a new understanding with Tricentis, consider this as an update.

@gasparnagy first of all. Thank you for taking this up with Tricentis. I just came across this issue a couple of days ago as we have heavily invested our time and the usage of feature files and the specflow VS plugin and AzureDevOps Specflow+ LivingDoc. And we have recently started investing into making our integration tests parallelizable at Feature level. And are now ready to also do this at scenario level. We have a couple of concerns as organization using Specflow "Products":

Our root and main concern is the sustainability model. Since we are not paying for any of the Specflow products and services, we question the commitment and development umph for Specflow in general. Comments made by @SabotageAndi further decreases our confidence in this regard. I can't imagine that all the companies who use these products and tools aren't also willing to pay for it. All other concerns stem from this concern.

Another concern is adoptability. Do we have a clear picture of the market/usage-share of specflow products and services? Or have most companies moved on and is there only a remnant of companies left who still use this? I say this because in my network I increasingly hear more voices talking about the fact that they used to use specflow. But have dropped it from their way of working.

Dave Farley, used to mention specflow as one of his sponsors. But is now using Tricentis. Just wondering if there are lessons earned from years of using specflow in different projects that have lead to new insights or even better solutions. As using Feature Files is a serious commitment and investment with clear trade-offs.

[gasparnagy]

@ThomasHeijtink Thanks for sharing your thougts.

I think the "market share" of SpecFlow is still big. There are many-many companies who use it, and there is no other widely accepted BDD solution in the .NET space. I don't know if the "feature files" will be the best way to practice BDD-style development in long term, but I don't see a clear alternative yet so feature files will be a valid solution for the next 5-10 years for sure in my opinion. For your BDD solution to be successful, the team should have a commitment and willingness to collaborate from the business side. There will be always companies who try BDD and drop it because they don't want to make that commitment. That is part of the nature of this game and int was like that from the beginning, but I don't think that is related to the status of SpecFlow.

Sustainability is a generic issue for open-source, let's not go into that here, because it is off-topic. But regardless of how hard it is to imagine, companies are not willing to pay for using open-source products and tools unless they are forced to do so. I've tried this for 10+ years and I'm pretty certain about this.

In terms of the future, I can only repeat the commitment I made earlier: as I also use SpecFlow for my own projects, I will find a way in any case to keep it alive.

But I think for you to make the choice, the biggest question is not what the trade-offs of using SpecFlow, but the trade-offs and the cost of the alternatives. So that is anyway difficult.

[SabotageAndi]

@SabotageAndi We are still receiving emails in your name. Unless you have come to a new understanding with Tricentis, consider this as an update.

Thanks @ThomasHeijtink for the info. I told them multiple times already that they need to change it. I will try it again.

Comments made by @SabotageAndi further decreases our confidence in this regard.

Which ones do you mean? I don't speak anymore for Tricentis and/or SpecFlow. I have no insight what Tricentis is doing and have no information.

Dave Farley, used to mention specflow as one of his sponsors. But is now using Tricentis. Just wondering if there are lessons earned from years of using specflow in different projects that have lead to new insights or even better solutions. As using Feature Files is a serious commitment and investment with clear trade-offs.

I can give here more background. The SpecFlow Team of Tricentis had an sponsoring/advertisement deal with Dave Farley. This was simply changed to promote Tricentis. The deal has nothing todo what tools Dave Farley is using. It was always only about advertising the SpecFlow brand and now the Tricentis brand.

[ajeckmans]

@ThomasHeijtink Thanks for sharing your thougts.

In terms of the future, I can only repeat the commitment I made earlier: as I also use SpecFlow for my own projects, I will find a way in any case to keep it alive.

Same goes for me as well. I've implemented specflow across multiple projects across multiple companies and I see no reason (other than the inactivity here) to stop doing that. If I can help in any way to make specflow better I'd be glad to help. For instance https://github.com/SpecFlowOSS/SpecFlow.Rider/issues/202 and #2492. The only issue I have now, is determining who can help me get to the correct approach and whether changes will be merged by someone in the end or not.

[Socolin]

@ThomasHeijtink Thanks for sharing your thougts. In terms of the future, I can only repeat the commitment I made earlier: as I also use SpecFlow for my own projects, I will find a way in any case to keep it alive.

Same goes for me as well. I've implemented specflow across multiple projects across multiple companies and I see no reason (other than the inactivity here) to stop doing that. If I can help in any way to make specflow better I'd be glad to help. For instance SpecFlowOSS/SpecFlow.Rider#202 and #2492. The only issue I have now, is determining who can help me get to the correct approach and whether changes will be merged by someone in the end or not.

I'm in charge of the Rider plugin. I just don't have the energy to do new features for now (I hope to get on it at some point, but not knowing the future of Specflow does not help). I plan to keep it updated with Rider updates, but since I have many plugins I wait later version of EAP before updating them so I can do all of them together, and most of the time the API is stable enough after few EAP so I don't have to do the updated multiple times.

If you do a PR for the Rider plugin, I can merge it and I'll publish a new version.

[ThomasHeijtink]

Thanks @ThomasHeijtink for the info. I told them multiple times already that they need to change it. I will try it again.

Comments made by @SabotageAndi further decreases our confidence in this regard.

Which ones do you mean? I don't speak anymore for Tricentis and/or SpecFlow. I have no insight what Tricentis is doing and have no information.

Dave Farley, used to mention specflow as one of his sponsors. But is now using Tricentis. Just wondering if there are lessons earned from years of using specflow in different projects that have lead to new insights or even better solutions. As using Feature Files is a serious commitment and investment with clear trade-offs.

I can give here more background. The SpecFlow Team of Tricentis had an sponsoring/advertisement deal with Dave Farley. This was simply changed to promote Tricentis. The deal has nothing todo what tools Dave Farley is using. It was always only about advertising the SpecFlow brand and now the Tricentis brand.

@SabotageAndi thanks for the background info regarding Dave Farley and his sponsor deal. My point was also him mentioning Tricentis rather than specflow. Most BDD testers will be far more familiar with SpecFlow rather than Tricentis. But maybe that's just in the circles I am in.

My point about your message stating that there was no handover, and their inaction regarding Tricentis not updating their communication e-mails.

[ThomasHeijtink]

@gasparnagy thank you for weighing in on the issues I raised. It helps to hear from others about how widely used it is in order to be able to have some idea regarding the level of niche we are in.

Regarding the teams' willingness to work with the business is luckily not the issue in my case. But their willingness to maintain a living and exhaustive requirements document is for many engineers another level. In the beginning many don't see the need and value it provides in the long run. Especially in the job market of engineers switching jobs rather often.

Furthermore, we discussed as a team that we wanted to make a selection of open source projects we like to contribute monetarily. So there are definitely companies who are willing to pay for Specflow. I've worked at a major pension and investment firm. They wouldn't mind paying $10 dollars a month per developer for using specflow. And nor would we. So I think there is a slight marketing issue here. Even if they want to use it for upselling. Tricentis is way too far in the background. I only recently learned about Tricentis. I just wouldn't be surprised that the specflow team could be self-sustaining in terms of cost.

But let's indeed not get off-topic here...

[KeesSchoutenEasySystems]

We're are using Specflow in almost all our projects! We are also willing to financial support the project by paying for a subscription per developer or something like that.

[Tiberriver256]

Any updates for us @gasparnagy?

[gasparnagy]

Any updates for us @gasparnagy?

I hope to get some updates within a few weeks.

[aguzev]

Just wondering if they expect an AI to replace SpecFlow.

[rajeesudh]

Any updates @gasparnagy ?

[tulavalle]

Note to self: We would also need soon:

• Cucumber Expression support for the Rider SpecFlow plugin
• Cucumber Expression and Rule support in LivingDoc generator
• Make LivingDoc generator work with more recent .NET versions

Hi @gasparnagy!

As for LivingDoc generator a suggestion, in addition to this note of a v4 for work with more recent .NET versions, would be to support the view of the rule in the html report

[Pressacco]

Let me begin by saying, thank you Tricentis & the software developers who have worked on SpecFlow.

Also a big thank you to @gasparnagy for all that you have done. Much appreciated.

Our organization started using SpecFlow approximately a year ago, and we see value in this testing approach. With respect to the road map moving forward my vote would be:

• Release SpecFlow so that it compiles against the latest release of .NET Core.
  • If nothing else, do this please.

[gasparnagy]

Thank you for your patience and support. This is a big day.

Please, welcome Reqnroll, the fork of SpecFlow that is aiming to reboot this valuable open-source project!

Public announcement of Reqnroll

There is a lot to say… I tried to describe as much as I can in the announcement, but please ask.

And most importantly: this is just the beginning… I'm really counting on you to make it successful. Let's req 🤘!

[Tyale-cpu]

@gasparnagy This is absolutely great news and incredible timing for us! We appreciate all of your work in moving forward and we are going to add it to a branch of our current solutions to test out.

[jrod567]

Fantastic news Gasparnagy!! Really looking forward to this!

[CRohm42]

Great news!!! Thanks Gaspar!!

[tulavalle]

Big day! We appreciate your commitment to maintaining this incredible tool, used in great products, it is the pillar of our quality strategy! By being compatible with LivingDocs on Azure, I will be ready to migrate and contribute my experience in processes and BDD to support the tool's evolution! Success @gasparnagy !

[ajeckmans]

Time to recreate an issue and start work on resolving it I guess!

[vijaybhargavc]

Awesome..! thanks so much @gasparnagy We were at the verge of deciding to go with BDD or without, and LivingDoc's .Net 6.0 support is a decision influencer. This is great news!

2591 is still open.