Feature: Using star notation instead of Given/When/Then Cucumber supports the star notation when writing features: instead of using Given/When/Then, you can simply use a star rather like you would use a bullet point. When you run the feature for the first time, you still get a nice message showing you the code snippet you need to use to implement the step. Scenario: Use some * Given a file named "features/f.feature" with: """ Feature: Star-notation feature Scenario: S * I have some cukes """ When I run `cucumber features/f.feature` Then the stderr should not contain anything And it should pass with: """ Feature: Star-notation feature Scenario: S # features/f.feature:2 * I have some cukes # features/f.feature:3 1 scenario (1 undefined) 1 step (1 undefined) """ And it should pass with: """ You can implement step definitions for undefined steps with these snippets: Given(/^I have some cukes$/) do pending # Write code here that turns the phrase above into concrete actions end """