Inferno Command Line Interface

The Inferno Command Line Interface is available to developers running Inferno with a local Ruby installation.

Inferno Commands

We recommend running all commands starting with bundle exec (e.g. bundle exec inferno migrate) because it guarantees that only the specific gems and versions listed in Gemfile.lock are available to be used. Warning: The inferno start command cannot be run with bundle exec prior to Inferno Core version 0.4.39.

The commands available include:

Creating a new Test Kit

The inferno new command allows you to create a new instance of an Inferno Test Kit. This command provides options to specify the names of authors, and load required implementation guides locally or from external websites. This will set the names of the test folder and Ruby file in the lib folder to match the name of the test kit, and set the name of the main module. It will also download the package.tgz file for the specified Implementation Guide(s).

This method can be more convenient than manually cloning the Inferno Template repository, as it automatically sets the names of files and folders to match the Test Kit name.
It will automatically install the necessary Gem files used by Inferno Core and run the database migrations to bring the database up to date. Run inferno new --help for more options and examples.

inferno new MyTestKit --author "My Name" --author "My Friend" --implementation-guide hl7.fhir.us.core@6.1.0

Note that this command follows the naming convention used by Ruby gems. The command inferno new MyTestKit will create a new folder named my-test-kit. Inside the my-test-kit/lib folder, it will create the subdirectory my_test_kit for your test files, and the main Ruby file named my_test_kit.rb. The main module in the .rb file will be named MyTestKit.

The new test kit supports RSpec testing on the test kit itself. It also includes a working example in my-test-kit/spec/patient_group_spec.rb.

It will create a my_test_kit.gemspec file, and set the names of any authors supplied using the -a option, and set the name, summary and description values to your Test Kit name. You should manually inspect this file if you want to publish or distribute the Test Kit.

The --implementation-guide or -i option will look at an absolute file path if its prefixed by file:/// or lookup the name in the official FHIR package registry.

Running a Test Kit in Command Line

The inferno execute command allows you to execute runnables from a Test Kit in the shell. The command requires:

• The Test Kit as the working directory.
• Inferno background services running.
• A Test Suite id.
• All inputs and any Suite Options necessary for execution.
• Optionally, the short ids of select Tests and Test Groups you want to run.

For example, to run the US Core Test Kit v3.1.1 Single Patient API group, you would:

1. clone the repository
2. launch the background services with bundle exec inferno services start
3. run the following command

bundle exec inferno execute --suite us_core_v311 \
                            --suite-options smart_app_launch_version:smart_app_launch_1 \
                            --groups 2 \
                            --inputs "url:https://inferno.healthit.gov/reference-server/r4" \
                                     patient_ids:85,355 \
                                     "smart_credentials:{\"access_token\":\"SAMPLE_TOKEN\"}"

To view Test Suite ids you can run bundle exec inferno suites. Test Group short ids and input names are available in the web UI. Suite Option ids and values, if present in your Test Kit, can be found in its source code by searching for suite_option in the DSL.

The inferno execute command also allows you to execute one or more specific Tests. For example, in inferno_core’s dev_validator suite you can run exactly two tests via:

bundle exec inferno execute --suite dev_validator --tests 1.01 1.02 --inputs "url:https://hapi.fhir.org/baseR4" patient_id:1234321

You can even combine and repeat Tests and Test Groups by doing:

bundle exec inferno execute --suite dev_validator --short-ids 1 1.01 --inputs "url:https://hapi.fhir.org/baseR4" patient_id:1234321

which means run all Tests under Test Group 1, and after that re-run Test 1.01. Each call to inferno execute represents one test session, and each short id reflects one test run. If short ids are omitted then the entire Test Suite will be executed. You can run

bundle exec inferno execute --help

for more information.

Please note that inferno execute is still low maturity and has limitations. Inferno currently cannot support SMART launch tests or tests that receive client requests via CLI execution. Some tests are also expected to run as a group, and may error or fail erroneously when run individually through CLI.