beforeEach(fn, timeout)

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

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 reset some global state that will be used by many tests.

For example:

const globalDatabase = makeGlobalDatabase();

beforeEach(() => {
  // 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'});
  });
});

test('can find things', () => {
  return globalDatabase.find('thing', {}, results => {
    expect(results.length).toBeGreaterThan(0);
  });
});

test('can insert a thing', () => {
  return globalDatabase.insert('thing', makeThing(), response => {
    expect(response.success).toBeTruthy();
  });
});

Here the beforeEach ensures that the database is reset for each test.

If beforeEach is inside a describe block, it runs for each test in the describe block.

If you only need to run some setup code once, before any tests run, use beforeAll instead.