Best Practices for Prompting Pie

Ready to create custom test cases that just work? Great prompts lead to great tests.

Pie understands natural language, so you can describe what you want to test in plain English. For complex flows or when you need precise control over a specific user path, these practices help you get exactly the test case you’re looking for.

Spell Out Every Action

You’ll get more thorough test cases when you walk through the entire workflow in your prompt. Where should Pie navigate? What should it click? What data should it enter?

Think of your prompt as walking a teammate through the process. Mention which screen to go to, what button to click, which fields to fill, and how to save.

Example:

“Go to Settings > User Management. Click Add User, enter a unique email address, select the Admin role from the dropdown, and click Save.”

You can include as much detail as you need. Every action you mention becomes a step in your test case.

Make Values Unique

Want fresh data for every test run? You can tell Pie to generate unique values by adding a note at the end of your prompt:

Note: To make the values unique, use the current date-timestamp{DDMMhhmmss}

When you ask for a “unique name” or “unique email” in your prompt, Pie appends a timestamp automatically. Each test run creates independent data with no collisions.

Use Clear Navigation Paths

You’ll help Pie reach the right screen faster when you use the > symbol to show the menu path:

• Settings > Account > Security
• Dashboard > Reports > Monthly
• Admin > Users > Roles
• Shop > Categories > Electronics

You can also mention where the navigation starts. Does it begin from the sidebar? A specific menu? The more specific you are, the more reliable your test.

Example:

“From the sidebar, navigate to Admin > Users > Roles. Select the Editor role, enable ‘Can Publish’ permission, and save.”

Search Before You Act

Creating a record and need to find it later? You can include a search step to make sure Pie interacts with the exact record it created.

Example:

“Go to Products > Catalog. Click Add Product, enter a unique product name, set price to 25.00, and save. Search for the newly created product, open it, change the price to 30.00, and save.”

The search step connects the “create” portion of your test with the “interact” portion, especially helpful in environments with lots of existing data.

See It In Action

Here’s how these practices come together for different scenarios:

Signup and Login Flow

“Navigate to the Register page. Enter a unique email address, create a password with ‘Test123!’, accept the terms, and click Sign Up. Log out. Return to the Login page, enter the same email and password, and sign in. Verify the dashboard loads.”

Content Management

“Go to Admin > Content > Pages. Click Create Page, enter a unique page title, add body text ‘Test content for validation’, set status to Draft, and save. Search for the newly created page, open it, change status to Published, and save. Verify the page appears in the Published list.”

E-commerce Checkout

“Navigate to Shop > Products. Add the first available item to cart. Go to Cart, increase quantity to 2, verify the total updates. Click Checkout, enter a unique email and shipping address, select Express Shipping, and complete purchase with test card 4111111111111111.”

Settings Validation

“Navigate to Settings > Notifications. Disable all email notifications and save. Refresh the page. Verify all email notifications remain disabled. Re-enable ‘Order Updates’ only and save.”

Record Deletion

“Navigate to Contacts > All Contacts. Click Add Contact, enter a unique name and email, and save. Search for the newly created contact, select it, and click Delete. Confirm the deletion. Search for the same contact again and verify no results are found.”

ℹ️ Tip: For any test case that creates records, add the unique timestamp note at the end of your prompt to avoid data conflicts.

Quick Checklist

Before you submit your prompt:

• Every action spelled out in sequence
• Navigation paths use > format
• Unique identifier note included when creating records
• Search steps before interacting with created records
• Clear endpoint for the test