Table of Contents

Fastest first run

This is the quickest way to get a real Cress run without building the full solution first. It uses the CLI as a local dotnet tool built from the repository source and the built-in HTTP sample project.

Who this is for

Use this path when you want to evaluate Cress quickly and prove the core workflow before exploring Studio, Playwright, desktop automation, or framework-generated tests.

Prerequisites

  • Windows
  • .NET SDK 10.0.107 or later

1. Pack the CLI as a local tool

From the repository root:

dotnet pack src\Cress.Cli\Cress.Cli.csproj --configuration Release --output artifacts\packages
dotnet tool install --tool-path .\.tools\cress --add-source artifacts\packages Cress.Cli

After that, the CLI is available at:

.\.tools\cress\cress --help

Project loaded in Studio

2. Move into the sample project

Set-Location specs\httpbin-smoke

3. Validate the project

..\..\.tools\cress\cress validate

If the project is wired correctly, Cress reports a successful validation result.

4. Run a real flow

..\..\.tools\cress\cress run flows\httpbin\get-smoke.flow.yaml --report html,json,junit

This executes a real HTTP flow and writes artifacts and reports into the project output folders.

5. Inspect the outputs

Look in:

  • artifacts\
  • reports\

for the run metadata, JSON output, and generated reports.

Results panel

6. Next steps

After this first run:

  1. open the HTTP quickstart for a fuller walkthrough
  2. move to Studio overview to learn the GUI surfaces
  3. use GitHub Actions integration when you are ready to run the same project in CI