url

Get the current URL of the page that is currently active.

Syntax

cy.url()
cy.url(options)

Usage

Correct Usage

cy.url() // Yields the current URL as a string

Arguments

options (Object)

Pass in an options object to change the default behavior of cy.url().

cy.url( options )

Yields

• cy.url() yields the current URL as a string.
• cy.url() is a query, and it is safe to chain further methods.

Examples

No Args

Assert the URL is http://localhost:8000/users/1/edit

// clicking the anchor causes the browser to follow the link
cy.get('#user-edit a').click()
cy.url().should('include', '/users/1/edit') // => true
cy.url().should('eq', 'http://localhost:8000/users/1/edit') // => true

decode option

When the URL contains non-ASCII characters, use the decode option.

// For the curious, '사랑' means 'love' in Korean.
cy.url({ decode: true }).should('contain', '사랑')

Notes

Href Shorthand

URL is an alias for cy.location('href')

cy.url() uses href under the hood.

cy.url() // these yield the same string
cy.location('href') // these yield the same string

Differences

URL versus href

Given the remote URL, http://localhost:8000/index.html, all 3 of these assertions are the same.

cy.location('href').should('include', '/index.html')

cy.location().its('href').should('include', '/index.html')

cy.url().should('include', '/index.html')

href and toString come from the window.location spec.

But you may be wondering where the URL property comes from. Per the window.location spec, there actually isn't a URL property on the location object.

cy.url() exists because it's what most developers naturally assume would return them the full current URL. We almost never refer to the URL as an href.

Hardcoded versus using the configuration object

Instead of hard-coding the URL used in the assertion, we recommend you define a baseUrl in your Cypress configuration. For more details on why, see our Best Practices guide on setting a global baseUrl.

Given the remote URL, http://localhost:8000/index.html, and the baseUrl, http://localhost:8000, these assertions are the same.

cy.url().should('eq', 'http://localhost:8000/index.html')
cy.url().should('eq', Cypress.config().baseUrl + '/index.html') // tests won't fail in case the port changes

Assert that the url contains "#users/new"

cy.url().should('contain', '#users/new')

Rules

Requirements

• cy.url() requires being chained off of cy .

Assertions

• cy.url() will automatically retry until all chained assertions have passed

Timeouts

• cy.url() can time out waiting for assertions you've added to pass.

Command Log

The commands above will display in the Command Log as:

When clicking on URL within the Command Log, the console outputs the following:

History

See also

• cy.hash()
• cy.location()