How to run Protractor e2e tests using different Angular environment variables

Question

I use Angular environment variables to configure API endpoints:

.\src\environments:
    environment.ts
    environment.test.ts
    environment.prod.ts

The environtment files contain settings like the following which are different for local dev and CI servers:

export const environment = {
  ...
  apiUrl: "https://api.sample.com"
};

That works fine when I need to build or start the application. I can simply specify the environment parameter:

ng serve --environment=test

... but it appeared that it's impossible to set a specific environment when running e2e Protractor tests. The following command simply ignores the environment (which seems to be expected according to this comment). The default environment is always used:

ng e2e --environment=test    // same as `ng e2e`

Are there any other ways to run the tests using a specific environment?

Solution 1

With the new Angular 6 angular.json config file: I was able to use my file environment.test.ts on my e2e tests. I had to create a new architect on my project, I called it serve-e2e.

    "serve-e2e": {
      "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:dev-server",
      "options": {
        "browserTarget": "q-desktop-v2:build:test"
      }
    }

My build:test config uses the "fileReplacements" configurations :

    "test": {
      "fileReplacements": [
        {
          "replace": "src/environments/environment.ts",
          "with": "src/environments/environment.test.ts"
        }
      ]
    }

Then in my project-e2e I use my customized "serve-e2e" option for the devServerTarget:

      "options": {
        "protractorConfig": "./protractor.conf.js",
        "devServerTarget": "q-desktop-v2:serve-e2e"
      }

This makes it easy to add or ignore specific code if the app is running on test environment :

    if (!environment.test) {
     // do something
    }

Solution 2

I was able to successfully use a different environment by adding it to the .angular-cli.json

  "environments": {
    "dev": "environments/environment.ts",
    "test": "environments/environment.test.ts",
    "prod": "environments/environment.prod.ts"
  }

then calling

ng e2e --environment test

Solution 3

Angular 6 removed support for the --environment option. For build or serve you can just switch to ng build --configuration test or ng serve --configuration test. However, at least in my project, the Angular upgrade actually created a whole other project configuration named <myproject>-e2e in my angular.json file.

Inside, it might look something like this.

"myproject-e2e": {
  "root": "",
  "sourceRoot": "",
  "projectType": "application",
  "architect": {
    "e2e": {
      "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:protractor",
      "options": {
        "protractorConfig": "./protractor.conf.js",
        "devServerTarget": "jglite:serve"
      }
    },
    "lint": {
      "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:tslint",
      "options": {
        "tsConfig": [
          "e2e/tsconfig.e2e.json"
        ],
        "exclude": [
          "**/node_modules/**"
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

The "devServerTarget": "jglite:serve" line is pointing the configuration at my default serve configuration.

In my case, I want to always run my e2e tests with my dev configuration, so I just changed this line to "devServerTarget": "jglite:serve:dev", and then I could run the environment I needed by just calling ng e2e.