HOW TO: SETUP PEST PHP 2 WITH LARAVEL 10+

This guide shows quick steps on how to use the current version of the PEST PHP Testing Framework with Laravel 10.

This guide has been written with the current latest versions of the libraries:

• PEST 2.6.2
• Laravel 10.13.1

InsTALLATION

• Install Laravel using any of their methods detailed in the Official Documentation
• Install PEST using Composer. The flags in this command are very important as it’s likely that you’ll have conflicting dependencies and this will take care of that for you:

composer require pestphp/pest --dev --with-all-dependencies

• Install the Laravel Plugin for PEST

composer require pestphp/pest-plugin-laravel --dev

• At this stage the installation should be complete and running the following you can verify that things are working as they should

./vendor/bin/pest --version

The above should output the installed PEST version, which in my case is 2.6.2

php artisan pest

The output here should be the ‘Available commands for the “pest” namespace

Installation Troubleshooting

Info from https://repo.packagist.org: #StandWithUkraine
./composer.json has been updated
Running composer update pestphp/pest
Loading composer repositories with package information
Updating dependencies
Your requirements could not be resolved to an installable set of packages.

  Problem 1
    - pestphp/pest[v0.1.0, ..., v0.2.4] require php ^7.3 -> your php version (8.1.19) does not satisfy that requirement.
    - pestphp/pest[v0.3.0, ..., v0.3.19, v1.0.0, ..., v1.4.0] require nunomaduro/collision ^5.0 -> found nunomaduro/collision[v5.0.0, ..., v5.11.0] but it conflicts with your root composer.json require (^7.0).
    - pestphp/pest[v1.5.0, ..., v1.17.0] require nunomaduro/collision ^5.4.0 -> found nunomaduro/collision[v5.4.0, ..., v5.11.0] but it conflicts with your root composer.json require (^7.0).
    - pestphp/pest[v1.18.0, ..., v1.21.1] require nunomaduro/collision ^5.4.0|^6.0 -> found nunomaduro/collision[v5.4.0, ..., v5.11.0, v6.0.0, ..., v6.4.0] but it conflicts with your root composer.json require (^7.0).
    - pestphp/pest[v1.21.2, ..., v1.22.1] require nunomaduro/collision ^5.10.0|^6.0 -> found nunomaduro/collision[v5.10.0, v5.11.0, v6.0.0, ..., v6.4.0] but it conflicts with your root composer.json require (^7.0).
    - pestphp/pest[v1.22.2, ..., v1.22.5] require nunomaduro/collision ^5.11.0|^6.3.0 -> found nunomaduro/collision[v5.11.0, v6.3.0, v6.3.1, v6.3.2, v6.4.0] but it conflicts with your root composer.json require (^7.0).
    - pestphp/pest[v1.22.6, ..., v1.23.0] require nunomaduro/collision ^5.11.0|^6.4.0 -> found nunomaduro/collision[v5.11.0, v6.4.0] but it conflicts with your root composer.json require (^7.0).
    - pestphp/pest v2.6.2 conflicts with phpunit/phpunit >10.2.0.
    - pestphp/pest v2.6.1 conflicts with phpunit/phpunit >10.1.3.
    - pestphp/pest[v2.5.3, ..., v2.6.0] conflict with phpunit/phpunit >10.1.2.
    - pestphp/pest[v2.5.1, ..., v2.5.2] conflict with phpunit/phpunit >10.1.1.
    - pestphp/pest v2.5.0 conflicts with phpunit/phpunit >10.1.0.
    - pestphp/pest[v2.3.0, ..., v2.4.0] conflict with phpunit/phpunit >10.0.19.
    - pestphp/pest[v2.2.1, ..., v2.2.3] conflict with phpunit/phpunit >10.0.18.
    - pestphp/pest[v2.0.2, ..., v2.2.0] conflict with phpunit/phpunit >10.0.17.
    - pestphp/pest v2.0.1 conflicts with phpunit/phpunit >10.0.16.
    - phpunit/phpunit is locked to version 10.2.1 and an update of this package was not requested.
    - Root composer.json requires pestphp/pest * -> satisfiable by pestphp/pest[v0.1.0, ..., v0.3.19, v1.0.0, ..., v1.23.0, v2.0.1, ..., v2.6.2].

Use the option --with-all-dependencies (-W) to allow upgrades, downgrades and removals for packages currently locked to specific versions.
You can also try re-running composer require with an explicit version constraint, e.g. "composer require pestphp/pest:*" to figure out if any version is installable, or "composer require pestphp/pest:^2.1" if you know which you need.

Installation failed, reverting ./composer.json and ./composer.lock to their original content.

If you see the error above, check the composer require command that you ran. You’ll need the flags displayed above to allow Composer to update your dependencies to satisfy PEST and Laravel.

Configuration

After installation you’ll find you can run the existing Laravel Example tests with the Pest command. This is because Pest is built on top of PHPUnit in a progressive manner.

If you try writing your own test e.g. consider the following:

<?php

it('makes an example request', function () {
    $response = $this->get('/');
    $response->assertStatus(200);
});

You may get an error like the following:

  FAILED  Tests\Feature\ExampleRequestTest > it get an example request                                                                                                                                                                                                 Error
  Call to undefined method Tests\Feature\ExampleRequestTest::get(). Did you forget to use the [uses()] function? Read more at: https://pestphp.com/docs/configuring-tests

  at tests/Feature/ExampleRequestTest.php:4
      1▕ <?php
      2▕
      3▕ it('get an example request', function () {
  ➜   4▕     $response = $this->get('/');
      5▕     $response->assertStatus(200);
      6▕ });
      7▕

  1   tests/Feature/ExampleRequestTest.php:4


  Tests:    2 failed, 2 passed (2 assertions)
  Duration: 0.08s

This is because Pest is not yet configured to use the Laravel TestCase which includes the additional methods such as get, post, actingAs etc.

To solve this we create a new file:

./tests/Pest.php

Add the following into the file

<?php
uses(\Tests\TestCase::class)->in('Feature');
uses(\Tests\TestCase::class)->in('Unit');

This tells Pest to use the Laravel TestCase in your Feature and Unit tests and makes the additional methods available to your Pest tests.

You can now run the test again, and this time it should run without the error

Database Setup (Optional)

Unit tests test blocks of code and so don’t require the Laravel application to start. However, with Feature tests you’ll find that they do boot the Laravel application and everything within – including a database connection. By default, it will connect to whatever you Database Connection is defined as in your .env file which means your tests end up writing to your dev database. This may be fine, but I prefer keeping a separate databases for Dev and Testing.

There’s a number of ways to do this including using SQLite, but I find it’s better to run the same database type as I will be using in production to avoid any unforeseen issues. The easiest way to do this is to create a second database and then configure the connection using a .env.testing file – more information on this is available in the Laravel Docs.

Summary

I hope this guide helps anyone looking for a current installation of Laravel and Pest.