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First Steps: Quick Start Guide

Written by Karim JOUINI

Thunders – Complete Onboarding Guide

A step-by-step walkthrough from creating your first project to generating test cases with AI.

Part 1: Creating a New Project

Click on “New project” via the Project side bar menu or by clicking on the shortcut to projects → Top left corner of your screen

Then follow theses steps to create your project

Part 2: Project Configuration

Once your project is created, you can go ahead and customize it

Click on “Project Settings” in your left sidebar menu

Step 2.1 – General Settings

Fill in the following details:

Step 2.2 – Configuration

Click on the tab “Configuration’’ to add more information about your project

  • Target Market – B2C, B2B SMB, B2B Enterprise, or Gov

  • Target Users – Add roles like “guest,” “admin,” or “premium user”

  • Scope & Specifications:

-Testing Objectives – e.g., "Verify all login flows"

-Key Features – e.g., "Cart, filters, login, payment"

-Integrations – e.g., "Stripe, Firebase, Algolia"

-Testing Methodology – Tick one or more:

  • Testing Standards:

-Quality Standards – e.g., ISO 25010

-Security Standards – e.g., GDPR, ISO 27001

-Accessibility Standards – e.g., WCAG 2.1

-AI Standards – e.g., fairness, explainability

-Other Standards – Add your own if needed

  • Tools:

-Framework – React, Angular, Vue, Django…

-Hosting Platform – Vercel, Heroku, AWS…

-Version Control – GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket…

Click Save.

Step 2.3 – Page stability settings

The Page Stability Settings form contains four configurable fields:

Navigation Timeout (ms)

  • Maximum time to wait for page navigation to successfully start (default: 20000ms)

Network Idle timeout (ms)

Time to wait with no network activity before considering the page stable (default: 500ms)

  • What it does: Waits for network requests to quiet down

  • Example: Enter 3000 for faster-loading sites or 8000 for content-heavy pages

Max Wait per Url (ms)

  • Maximum time to wait for page load after a URL change (default: 5000ms)

Max Overall Wait Time (ms)

  • Maximum total time to wait for page stability (default: 10000ms)

Minimum Wait Time (ms)

  • Minimum time to wait before checking page stability (default: 200ms)

Click Save.

Step 2.4 – Project Variables

Click on the tab ‘’Variables” to add project level variables that you will be able to use in all your test cases within the project despite of which environment is called.

  • Click on “Add Variable”

  • Chose your key (should always be in capital letters) and fill the value

  • If your variable is a credential that needs to stay secret then you can check the box ‘Store as a secure credential’

→ You can check the articles below to find more detailed information about variables usage:

Step 2.5 – PDF Export

Click on the tab “PDF Export”

You can customize the colors used in your PDF report and also choose which sections to include or not in the PDF report.

→ Check how to Export a Test Run Report as PDF

Part 3: Creating Your First Test Case

Step 3.1 – Test Case Page

After submitting, you land on your Project space:

  • Your left menu contains:

    • Thunders Copilot: Your body with who can chat to create your test case (simple prompt with natural language, Web Browse, From a JIRA / Linear Ticket)

    • Test Plans: Where you can create a test plan starting from your User stories or feature requirements

    • Test Cases: Where you will find all test cases created within your project

    • Test Assets: Where you will find all the files downloaded by your test cases

    • Test Sets: Where you will be able to create groups of test cases

    • Test Runs: Where you can track test executions

    • Environments: Where you can set-up you environments parameters (Variables, credentials…)

    • Apps: Where you can add and set up your different apps and APIs

    • Personas: Where you can customize your personas

    • Knowledge: Where you will find the différent tools that you can integrate to your Thunders account (ticketing tools, CI/CD..)

    • Labels: Where you can add and edit your labels

    • Project Settings: Where you can modify your project (URL, Execution language, Name, Page Load settings…)

  • Click “New Test Case.”

  • You can click on the first option ‘’Start with Thunders Copilot” to allow our copilot to build a test for you starting from a simple prompt like ‘’Go to URL and Login”

  • You can also chose the “Record Steps” Option if you don’t want to write a prompt, just do your actions las if you were manually testing and let us transform your actions into re-executable test steps

  • You can also chose to “Create an empty test case” if you prefere writing your test steps by yourself

Step 3.2 – Copilot

When you chose to start with Copilot (recommanded) you can;

  • Input a simple sentence like:

“Check that the homepage is in French.”

“Create a login test”

You can also activate “Web Browse” to allow Thunders to navigate on your URL to get more context to be able to build the steps

You can also connect Thunders to your ticketing tools (Jira, Linear) and give it a ticket number and ask to create a test case with the ticket informations (Repro steps, expected behaviour…)

  • Click “Generate Test Steps.”

Part 4: Test Steps Creation

Once Thunders generates a list of clear, structured test steps based on your description, you can always edit these steps :

1 - Edit with Thunders Copilot : You can ask anything to copilot, add (different types of steps; AI, API, Conditional steps, browser steps..), reorder, duplicate, disable or delete steps

2 - Edit manually : You can also do manually all the actions that the copilot can do for you

Part 5: Execute and Analyze Results

Step 5.1 – Run the Test

Once you are satisfied with the steps and execution settings (Environment, browser, device, location, persona…), click Execute to start the test.

Thunders opens a live browser on the right and begins running each step in real time.

  • Each step is highlighted as it runs.

  • You can see exactly what the AI agent is doing: visiting pages, clicking buttons, or filling inputs.

Step 5.2 – Assertions and Checks

At the end of the test (or during it), Thunders performs assertions to check if the expected elements or content are present.

Example:

“Assert that the homepage content is displayed in French.”

Each assertion result is classified by severity:

  • 🔴 Critical – Blocking issue.

    Major functionality is broken, and the test cannot continue.

    → The test stops and is marked as failed.

  • 🟠 High – Important element is missing.

    The test completes, but the outcome is unreliable.

    → The test is marked as failed.

  • 🟡 Medium – Minor issue (e.g., UI inconsistency).

    → The test continues and is marked as passed with warning.

  • 🔵 Low – Informational or cosmetic (e.g., small layout shift).

    → The test passes but logs the issue as a notice.

For any failure, Thunders provides:

  • A screenshot at the exact moment of the issue

  • An AI-generated explanation of what went wrong

Part 6: Bonus Tips & Recommandation

  • ✍️ Write clear, specific prompts

    Use short, direct sentences that describe exactly what you want to test.

  • 🔖 Use exact button and page names

    Refer to elements as they appear in the UI.

    ✅ “Click ‘Change Password’”

    ❌ “Reset your credentials”

  • 🚫 Avoid vague terms

    Don’t use words like “navigate” or “interact.”

    Prefer:

    “Click,” “Go to,” “Select,” “Type”

  • ✂️ Keep instructions short

    Break long prompts into smaller chunks.

    This helps the AI generate better and more accurate test steps.

  • 📦 Keep test steps focused

    One test step = one action / goal.

    Avoid mixing multiple flows or features in a single test.

    → Discover more tips for writing effective test steps in Thunders

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