Soft vs Hard Assertions

SHAFT Engine provides two assertion modes: hard assertions that stop the test immediately on the first failure, and soft assertions that collect all failures and report them together at the end of the test. Choosing the right mode is key to writing effective, maintainable tests.

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Hard Assertions — assertThat()

assertThat() is a hard assertion. If the assertion condition is not met, test execution stops immediately and the test is marked as failed. Remaining steps are skipped.

Use hard assertions for business-critical checkpoints where proceeding with a broken state would produce meaningless results.

SoftVsHardAssertions.java

// Hard assertion — test fails immediately on first failure
driver.assertThat().browser().title().contains("Dashboard").perform();
driver.assertThat(By.id("welcomeMsg")).text().contains("Welcome").perform();

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Soft Assertions — verifyThat()

verifyThat() is a soft assertion. If the condition is not met, the failure is recorded but execution continues. All accumulated failures are reported together at the end of the test.

Use soft assertions when you want to validate multiple independent conditions in a single test without early exit.

SoftVsHardAssertions.java

// Soft assertion — collects failures, reports all at end of test
driver.verifyThat().element(By.id("name")).text().contains("John").perform();
driver.verifyThat().element(By.id("email")).text().contains("@").perform();
driver.verifyThat().element(By.id("role")).text().isEqualTo("Admin").perform();
// All three are verified; all failures reported together at test end

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Standalone Validations

Both modes are also available without a driver instance via SHAFT.Validations:

SoftVsHardAssertions.java

import com.shaft.driver.SHAFT;

// Standalone hard assertion
SHAFT.Validations.assertThat().object("actual").isEqualTo("expected").perform();
SHAFT.Validations.assertThat().number(42).isGreaterThan(0).perform();

// Standalone soft assertions
SHAFT.Validations.verifyThat().object("actual").isEqualTo("expected").perform();
SHAFT.Validations.verifyThat().number(42).isGreaterThan(0).perform();

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Comparison

Aspect	assertThat() (Hard)	verifyThat() (Soft)
On failure	Stops test immediately	Records failure, continues
Use case	Critical business checkpoints	Multiple independent validations
Report	Shows first failure only	Shows all failures together
Test speed	Faster on failure	Completes all steps before reporting

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Complete Example

AssertionStrategyTest.java

import com.shaft.driver.SHAFT;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

public class AssertionStrategyTest {
    private SHAFT.GUI.WebDriver driver;

    @BeforeMethod
    public void setup() {
        driver = new SHAFT.GUI.WebDriver();
    }

    @Test
    public void validateUserProfile() {
        driver.browser().navigateToURL("https://example.com/profile");

        // Hard assertion: must be on the correct page before proceeding
        driver.assertThat().browser().url().contains("/profile").perform();

        // Soft assertions: validate all profile fields, collect all failures
        driver.verifyThat().element(By.id("fullName")).text().isNotEmpty().perform();
        driver.verifyThat().element(By.id("email")).text().contains("@").perform();
        driver.verifyThat().element(By.id("role")).text().isEqualTo("Admin").perform();
        driver.verifyThat().element(By.id("status")).text().isEqualTo("Active").perform();
    }

    @AfterMethod
    public void teardown() {
        driver.quit();
    }
}

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tip

A good pattern is to use one hard assertion to confirm the test precondition (e.g., correct page, user is logged in), then use soft assertions for all subsequent field validations.

info

Soft assertion failures are accumulated per-test and reported at the end of the test method. In TestNG, SHAFT triggers a test failure after the @AfterMethod completes, so all soft failures for a test are visible in the Allure report.