Gherkin

Gherkin is a business-readable, domain-specific language created to support Behavior-Driven Development (BDD). It lets teams describe software behavior in plain text using a structured Given-When-Then syntax that is human-readable and machine-parsable. Gherkin is the language used by Cucumber and many other BDD tools to define executable specifications and acceptance tests.

Gherkin is profiled on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include BDD, Gherkin, Testing, Acceptance Testing, and Cucumber.

Gherkin’s developer surface includes documentation, engineering blog, and 9 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

10.9/100 minimal ▬ flat Agent 0/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-20 · rubric v0.12.0

0 APIs

BDD Gherkin TestingAcceptance TestingCucumber

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-20 · rubric v0.12.0

Composite quality — 10.9/100 · minimal

Contract Quality 0.0 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 3.8 / 20

Access Clarity 0.0 / 20

Operational Transparency 2.1 / 13

Contract Governance 0.0 / 12

Discoverability 5.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 0/100 · human only

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/gherkin: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

Documentation 3

Reference material describing how the API behaves

ContributionGuide

ContributionGuide

Documentation

Documentation

Reference

Reference

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

CodeOfConduct

CodeOfConduct

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

IssueTracker

IssueTracker

Releases

Releases

Commercial 1

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

License

License

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Repository

Repository

Source (apis.yml)

aid: gherkin
name: Gherkin
description: Gherkin is a business-readable, domain-specific language created to support Behavior-Driven Development (BDD).
  It lets teams describe software behavior in plain text using a structured Given-When-Then syntax that is human-readable
  and machine-parsable. Gherkin is the language used by Cucumber and many other BDD tools to define executable specifications
  and acceptance tests.
type: Index
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source: []
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/gherkin.png
access: 3rd-Party
created: '2025-01-01'
modified: '2026-04-28'
position: Consumer
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/gherkin/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.23'
tags:
- BDD
- Gherkin
- Testing
- Acceptance Testing
- Cucumber
apis: []
common:
- type: IssueTracker
  url: https://github.com/cucumber/gherkin/issues
- type: Releases
  url: https://github.com/cucumber/gherkin/releases
- type: CodeOfConduct
  url: https://github.com/cucumber/.github/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
- type: ContributionGuide
  url: https://github.com/cucumber/gherkin/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md
- type: License
  name: MIT
  url: https://github.com/cucumber/gherkin/blob/main/LICENSE
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/gherkin-domain-security.yml
- type: Documentation
  url: https://cucumber.io/docs/gherkin/
- type: Reference
  url: https://cucumber.io/docs/gherkin/reference/
- type: Website
  url: https://cucumber.io/
- type: Repository
  url: https://github.com/cucumber/gherkin
- url: https://cucumber.io/blog/rss.xml
  type: Blog
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com