Testing

You are viewing the documentation for the new actor APIs, to view the Akka Classic documentation, see Classic Testing.

Module info

To use Actor TestKit add the module to your project:

sbt

val AkkaVersion = "2.6.10+87-ffb21da2"
libraryDependencies += "com.typesafe.akka" %% "akka-actor-testkit-typed" % AkkaVersion % Test

Maven

<properties>
  <akka.version>2.6.10+87-ffb21da2</akka.version>
  <scala.binary.version>2.12</scala.binary.version>
</properties>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.typesafe.akka</groupId>
  <artifactId>akka-actor-testkit-typed_${scala.binary.version}</artifactId>
  <version>${akka.version}</version>
  <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

Gradle

versions += [
  AkkaVersion: "2.6.10+87-ffb21da2",
  ScalaBinary: "2.12"
]
dependencies {
  test group: 'com.typesafe.akka', name: "akka-actor-testkit-typed_${versions.ScalaBinary}", version: versions.AkkaVersion
}

We recommend using Akka TestKit with ScalaTest:

sbt

libraryDependencies += "org.scalatest" %% "scalatest" % "3.1.4" % Test

Maven

<properties>
  <scala.binary.version>2.12</scala.binary.version>
</properties>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.scalatest</groupId>
  <artifactId>scalatest_${scala.binary.version}</artifactId>
  <version>3.1.4</version>
  <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

Gradle

versions += [
  ScalaBinary: "2.12"
]
dependencies {
  test group: 'org.scalatest', name: "scalatest_${versions.ScalaBinary}", version: '3.1.4'
}

Project Info: Akka Actor Testkit (typed)
Artifact	com.typesafe.akka akka-actor-testkit-typed 2.6.10+87-ffb21da2
JDK versions	Adopt OpenJDK 8 Adopt OpenJDK 11
Scala versions	2.12.11, 2.13.3
JPMS module name	akka.actor.testkit.typed
License	Apache-2.0
Readiness level	Supported, Lightbend Subscription provides support Since 2.6.0, 2019-11-06
Home page	https://akka.io/
API documentation	API (Scaladoc) API (Javadoc)
Forums	Lightbend Discuss akka/akka Gitter channel
Release notes	akka.io blog
Issues	Github issues
Sources	https://github.com/akka/akka

Introduction

Testing can either be done asynchronously using a real ActorSystemActorSystem or synchronously on the testing thread using the BehaviorTestKitBehaviorTestKit.

For testing logic in a BehaviorBehavior in isolation synchronous testing is preferred, but the features that can be tested are limited. For testing interactions between multiple actors a more realistic asynchronous test is preferred.

Those two testing approaches are described in: