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Paramixel

Paramixel is a Java 17+ test framework built around executable Action trees.

Instead of describing tests with many framework-specific annotations, you build them with plain Java using actions like Sequential, Parallel, Lifecycle, and Direct.

Core ideas​

  • Tests are trees of Action objects.
  • Discovery is optional: @Paramixel.ActionFactory marks a public static no-arg factory method.
  • Runner.run(action) executes an action tree and returns a Result.
  • Read outcomes from the returned Result tree or from action.getResult() after execution.
  • Runtime state is passed through Context and its Store.

Minimal example​

import org.paramixel.core.Action;
import org.paramixel.core.Paramixel;
import org.paramixel.core.action.Direct;
import org.paramixel.core.action.Sequential;

public class MyTest {

    @Paramixel.ActionFactory
    public static Action actionFactory() {
        return Sequential.of(
                "MyTest",
                Direct.of("step 1", context -> {}),
                Direct.of("step 2", context -> {}));
    }
}

Running tests​

Programmatically​

import org.paramixel.core.Runner;
import org.paramixel.core.Factory;

Action action = MyTest.actionFactory();
Result result = Factory.defaultRunner().run(action);

if (result.getStatus().isFailure()) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("test failed");
}

From the console​

import org.paramixel.core.Runner;

Runner runner = Runner.builder().build();
int exitCode = runner.runAndReturnExitCode(action);
System.exit(exitCode);

With Maven​

Use the Paramixel Maven plugin. It discovers @Paramixel.ActionFactory methods on the test classpath and runs them during the test phase.

Built-in actions​

  • Direct - run a callback
  • Sequential - run all children in order
  • DependentSequential - stop on first child failure; skip the rest
  • RandomSequential - run all children in shuffled order
  • DependentRandomSequential - shuffled fail-fast execution
  • Parallel - run children concurrently
  • Lifecycle - before, main, after
  • Noop - do nothing and pass

Configuration​

Core configuration is loaded from:

  1. paramixel.properties on the classpath
  2. JVM system properties
  3. programmatic Runner.builder().configuration(...) overrides, when used

Built-in keys include paramixel.parallelism, paramixel.match.package, paramixel.match.class, and paramixel.match.tag.

Use @Paramixel.Tag to tag action factories for selective discovery:

@Paramixel.ActionFactory
@Paramixel.Tag("smoke")
public static Action smokeTests() { /* ... */ }

Next steps​