WDIO - Selenium - Run Specific Test Before All Others - With Specific Capabilities - selenium

Question

I'm using WebDriverIO and I want to do the following:
Run a single test before any test is run (createNewUsers)
Use specific capabilities (proxy settings) for that first test
Once done, use a default set of capabilities for everything else
So I can't seem to figure this out:
I've tried to add a second set of capabilities and use the exclude argument to ensure it only applies to that specific spec, however, I don't know whether this is actually possible and then how to call that specific test in my before block - so capabilities I use:
exclude: [ './newUserCreationStage/newStageUsers.js' ],
But then in my before block - how do I say run that (if it's possible):
before: function (capabilities, specs) {
expect = require('chai').expect;
RUN THIS './newUserCreationStage/newStageUsers.js'
},

Answer 1

I would say that your setup needs a bit different approach. First take a look at the xUnit Fixture Setup Patterns. This createNewUsers can actually be achieved via SuiteFixture Setup, Prebuilt Fixture, Setup Decorator and Creation Method. This will set the SUT in the desired state and remove the need to
Run a single test before any test is run
Even better - if you have access, you can seed a DB or call APIs to load all users, data and whatever you need before the test run. This is also known as Back Door Manipulation. Let your CI server to take care of all this as a dedicated step.
Since you are using Mocha, you can utilize tags and organise your suites and specs in a better way. This will allow you to switch drivers with capabilities according to your needs (read test needs, ones may need proxy, others not). I would suggest to also consider mocha-tags. Good fit here is the Strategy pattern. It will allow you to have many related subclasses which only differ in behavior.