Agile Glossary

Given – When – Then

> Just getting started with Agile? Learn the essentials at Agile2024!

What is Given – When – Then?

The Given-When-Then formula is a template intended to guide the writing of acceptance tests for a User Story:

(Given) some context
(When) some action is carried out
(Then) a particular set of observable consequences should obtain

An example:

Given my bank account is in credit, and I made no withdrawals recently,
When I attempt to withdraw an amount less than my card’s limit,
Then the withdrawal should be complete without errors or warnings

Tools such as JBehave, RSpec, or Cucumber encourage the use of this template, though it can also be used purely as a heuristic irrespective of any tool.

< View all Glossary Terms | Provide feedback on this term

Add to Bookmarks Remove Bookmark

Add to Bookmarks Remove from Bookmarks

Thank you to our Annual Partners

Join us today!

Agile Alliance offers many online and in-person events and workshops for our members. If you’re not currently a member, you can join now to take advantage of our many members-only resources and programs.

Get the latest Agile news!

By subscribing, you acknowledge the Agile Alliance Privacy Policy, and agree to receive our emails.

Additional Agile Glossary Terms

Acceptance Testing

An acceptance test is a formal description of the behavior of a software product, generally expressed as an example or a usage scenario. A number of different notations and approaches have been proposed for such examples or scenarios.

TDD

Test-driven development (TDD) is a style of programming where coding, testing, and design are tightly interwoven. Benefits include reduction in defect rates.

Heartbeat Retrospective

The team meets regularly to reflect on the most significant events that occurred since the previous such meeting, and identify opportunities for improvement.

Product Backlog

A product backlog is a list of the new features, changes to existing features, bug fixes, infrastructure changes or other activities that a team may deliver in order to achieve a specific outcome.

Acceptance Testing

TDD

Test-driven development (TDD) is a style of programming where coding, testing, and design are tightly interwoven. Benefits include reduction in defect rates.

Heartbeat Retrospective

The team meets regularly to reflect on the most significant events that occurred since the previous such meeting, and identify opportunities for improvement.

Help us keep the definitions updated

Discover the many benefits of membership

Your membership enables Agile Alliance to offer a wealth of first-rate resources, present renowned international events, support global community groups, and more — all geared toward helping Agile practitioners reach their full potential and deliver innovative, Agile solutions.

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

Please see our Privacy Notice for further information.

Necessary

Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.

Cookie	Duration	Description
__cfduid	1 month	The cookie is used by cdn services like CloudFare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not correspond to any user ID in the web application and does not store any personally identifiable information.
_csrf	session	This cookie is essential for the security of the website and visitor. It ensures visitor browsing security by preventing cross-site request forgery.
_GRECAPTCHA	5 months 27 days	This cookie is set by Google. In addition to certain standard Google cookies, reCAPTCHA sets a necessary cookie (_GRECAPTCHA) when executed for the purpose of providing its risk analysis.
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement	1 year	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Advertisement".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
gdpr[allowed_cookies]	1 year	This cookie is set by the GDPR WordPress plugin. It is used to store the cookies allowed by the logged-in users and the visitors of the website.
JSESSIONID	session	Used by sites written in JSP. General purpose platform session cookies that are used to maintain users' state across page requests.
PHPSESSID	session	This cookie is native to PHP applications. The cookie is used to store and identify a users' unique session ID for the purpose of managing user session on the website. The cookie is a session cookies and is deleted when all the browser windows are closed.
pmpro_visit		The cookie is set by PaidMembership Pro plugin. The cookie is used to manage user memberships.
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Functional

Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.

Cookie	Duration	Description
__atuvc	1 year 1 month	This cookie is set by Addthis to make sure you see the updated count if you share a page and return to it before our share count cache is updated.
__atuvs	30 minutes	This cookie is set by Addthis to make sure you see the updated count if you share a page and return to it before our share count cache is updated.
__jid	30 minutes	Used to remember the user's Disqus login credentials across websites that use Disqus
aka_debug		This cookie is set by the provider Vimeo.This cookie is essential for the website to play video functionality. The cookie collects statistical information like how many times the video is displayed and what settings are used for playback.
bcookie	2 years	This cookie is set by linkedIn. The purpose of the cookie is to enable LinkedIn functionalities on the page.
CONSENT	16 years 8 months 15 days 5 hours	Description Pending
disqus_unique	1 year	Disqus.com internal statistics
lang	session	This cookie is used to store the language preferences of a user to serve up content in that stored language the next time user visit the website.
language		This cookie is used to store the language preference of the user.
lidc	1 day	This cookie is set by LinkedIn and used for routing.
locale	3 days	This cookie is used to store the language preference of a user allowing the website to content relevant to the preferred language.
STYXKEY_aa_signup_visited	session	No description

Performance

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

Cookie	Duration	Description
_gat_UA-17319182-1	1 minute	Set by Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to enable website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. These cookies are used to collect information about how you use our website. The information collected includes number of visitors, pages visited and time spent on the website. The information is collected by Google Analytics in aggregated and anonymous form, and we use the data to help us make improvements to the website.
YSC	session	This cookies is set by Youtube and is used to track the views of embedded videos.

Analytics

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

Cookie	Duration	Description
_ga	2 years	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_gtag_UA_17319182_1	1 minute	Set by Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to enable website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. These cookies are used to collect information about how you use our website. The information collected includes number of visitors, pages visited and time spent on the website. The information is collected by Google Analytics in aggregated and anonymous form, and we use the data to help us make improvements to the website.
_gat_UA-0000000-1	1 minute	Set by Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to enable website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. These cookies are used to collect information about how you use our website. The information collected includes number of visitors, pages visited and time spent on the website. The information is collected by Google Analytics in aggregated and anonymous form, and we use the data to help us make improvements to the website.
_gid	1 day	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the website is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visted in an anonymous form.
eud	1 year 24 days	The domain of this cookie is owned by Rocketfuel. This cookie is used to sync with partner systems to identify the users. This cookie contains partner user IDs and last successful match time.
S	1 hour	domain .google.com
uvc	1 year 1 month	The cookie is set by addthis.com to determine the usage of Addthis.com service.
vuid	2 years	This domain of this cookie is owned by Vimeo. This cookie is used by vimeo to collect tracking information. It sets a unique ID to embed videos to the website.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.

Duration

Description

_fbp

3 months

This cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.

AnalyticsSyncHistory

1 month

Used to store information about the time a sync with the lms_analytics cookie took place for users in the Designated Countries

bscookie

2 years

This cookie is a browser ID cookie set by Linked share Buttons and ad tags.

euds

session

These cookies are from Rocket Fuel (rfihub.com) and are used to deliver targeted advertising across their network sites ensuring users see relevant advertising.

3 months

The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.

IDE

1 year 24 days

Used by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.

loc

1 year 1 month

This cookie is set by Addthis. This is a geolocation cookie to understand where the users sharing the information are located.

NID

6 months

This cookie is used to a profile based on user's interest and display personalized ads to the users.

pxrc

2 months

The purpose of the cookie is to identify a visitor to serve relevant advertisement.

rlas3

1 year

The cookie is set by rlcdn.com. The cookie is used to serve relevant ads to the visitor as well as limit the time the visitor sees an and also measure the effectiveness of the campaign.

rud

1 year 24 days

The domain of this cookie is owned by Rocketfuel. The main purpose of this cookie is advertising. This cookie is used to identify an user by an alphanumeric ID. It register the user data like IP, location, visited website, ads clicked etc with this it optimize the ads display based on user behaviour.

ruds

session

The domain of this cookie is owned by Rocketfuel. This cookie is a session cookie version of the 'rud' cookie. It contain the user ID information. It is used to deliver targeted advertising across the networks.

sd-session-id

1 year 24 days

Registers data on visitors from multiple visits and on multiple websites. This information is used to measure the efficiency of advertisement on websites.

test_cookie

15 minutes

This cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.

UID

2 years

This cookie is used by AddThis as a unique user ID that recognises the user on returning visits.

UserMatchHistory

1 month

Linkedin - Used to track visitors on multiple websites, in order to present relevant advertisement based on the visitor's preferences.

uuid2

3 months

This cookies is set by AppNexus. The cookies stores information that helps in distinguishing between devices and browsers. This information us used to select advertisements served by the platform and assess the performance of the advertisement and attribute payment for those advertisements.

VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE

5 months 27 days

This cookie is set by Youtube. Used to track the information of the embedded YouTube videos on a website.

xtc

1 year 1 month

Anonymously tracks user behaviour on the websites that allow a user to share pages on social media using the AddThis tool. AddThis log the anonymous use to generate usage trends to improve the relevance of their services and advertising.

zync-uuid

1 year 23 days 17 hours

The purpose of the cookie is to serve visitors with relevant advertisement.

Others

Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.

Cookie	Duration	Description
CP5XKN6QLDFWUC		This cookie is provided by the Calculated Fields form. This cookie is used by the online calculators on the website. Without the Calculated Fields cookie the instant quotation may not work.

Membership

Members-only Content

Become an Agile Alliance member!

Agile Conferences

Virtual Events

Community Events

Agile Essentials

Download the Agile Manifesto

Recent Blog Posts

Agile Resources

The NEW Agile Resource Guide

Sustainability Manifesto

MEMBER INITIATIVES

Your Community

Global Development

Global Affiliates

Global Affiliates

OUR POLICIES

ABOUT US

Become a sponsor

Agile Glossary

Given – When – Then

What is Given – When – Then?

Thank you to our Annual Partners​

Join us today!

Get the latest Agile news!

Additional Agile Glossary Terms

Help us keep the definitions updated

Discover the many benefits of membership

Thank you to our valued Agile Alliance Annual Partners

Our Cornerstone Corporate Supporting Members

Thank you to our Annual Partners