beforeAll(fn, timeout)

Runs a function before any of the tests in this file run. If the function returns a promise or is a generator, Jest waits for that promise to resolve before running tests.

Optionally, you can provide a timeout (in milliseconds) for specifying how long to wait before aborting. Note: The default timeout is 5 seconds.

This is often useful if you want to set up some global state that will be used by many tests.

For example:

const globalDatabase = makeGlobalDatabase();

beforeAll(() => {
  // Clears the database and adds some testing data.
  // Jest will wait for this promise to resolve before running tests.
  return globalDatabase.clear().then(() => {
    return globalDatabase.insert({testData: 'foo'});
  });
});

// Since we only set up the database once in this example, it's important
// that our tests don't modify it.
test('can find things', () => {
  return globalDatabase.find('thing', {}, results => {
    expect(results.length).toBeGreaterThan(0);
  });
});

Here the beforeAll ensures that the database is set up before tests run. If setup was synchronous, you could do this without beforeAll. The key is that Jest will wait for a promise to resolve, so you can have asynchronous setup as well.

If beforeAll is inside a describe block, it runs at the beginning of the describe block.

If you want to run something before every test instead of before any test runs, use beforeEach instead.