Architecture

The harness separates object construction from actions that have side effects. This keeps a scenario's setup readable and makes the point at which a real command runs explicit.

World

Cucumber's World stores typed aliases and the latest command or HTTP result. Step definitions use those values to build commands and assertions without sharing state between scenarios.

Real boundaries

Most Given steps only construct an object. The Kubernetes resource aliases are the deliberate exception: they perform a read-only kubectl get so later steps can operate on an object that exists. A HelmRelease resolves its chart object because the correct Helm argument depends on the chart source.

HTTP endpoints remain pure during construction. The first network operation is the explicit request step.

Execution flow

flowchart LR
  A[Given alias] --> B[When real command or request]
  B --> C[World result]
  C --> D[Then assertion]