Test automation often faces flaky test failures or environmental issues. Instead of rerunning the entire suite, it’s much more efficient to rerun only the failed test cases.

In this article, I’ll walk you through how to rerun failed scenarios in a Cucumber framework with a TestNG runner.

🧪 Why Rerun Failed Tests?

• Saves execution time

• Focuses debugging on flaky or failed tests

• Reduces load on test environments and CI/CD pipelines

✅ Step-by-Step Guide

🧩 Prerequisites

• Java

• Maven project

• Cucumber + TestNG setup

• Basic understanding of feature files and step definitions

1️⃣ Update Cucumber TestNG Runner to Record Failures

Use the rerun plugin in your Cucumber options to log failed scenarios.

@CucumberOptions(
    features = "src/test/resources/features",
    glue = "stepDefinitions",
    plugin = {
        "pretty",
        "html:target/cucumber-reports",
        "rerun:target/failed_scenarios.txt"
    },
    monochrome = true
)
public class TestRunner extends AbstractTestNGCucumberTests {
}

🔹 The rerun:target/failed_scenarios.txt plugin creates a file with all failed scenario paths.

2️⃣ Create a Separate Runner for Failed Scenarios

This runner will pick up and execute only the failed tests from the .txt file.

@CucumberOptions(
    features = "@target/failed_scenarios.txt", // '@' tells Cucumber to read from the file
    glue = "stepDefinitions",
    plugin = {
        "pretty",
        "html:target/cucumber-reports-rerun"
    },
    monochrome = true
)
public class FailedTestRunner extends AbstractTestNGCucumberTests {
}

3️⃣ Execute the Test Flow

1. Run TestRunner.java to execute all tests

2. Cucumber logs any failures in target/failed_scenarios.txt

3. Run FailedTestRunner.java to rerun only the failed scenarios

🛠 Optional: Integrate with testng.xml

<suite name="CucumberSuite">
    <test name="Initial Test Run">
        <classes>
            <class name="runner.TestRunner"/>
        </classes>
    </test>
    <test name="Rerun Failed Tests">
        <classes>
            <class name="runner.FailedTestRunner"/>
        </classes>
    </test>
</suite>

This ensures both test passes and reruns are managed in a single TestNG suite.