When people hear “full stack”, they often think about developers—those unicorns who write Vue in the morning, wrangle GraphQL in the afternoon, and somehow squeeze in DevOps before dinner. But thereʼs another full-stack role that gets far less attention: the full-stack test engineer.

As someone who works daily with a Nuxt application—frontend in Vue.js, backend in TypeScript—Iʼve learned that quality doesnʼt stop at the UI, nor does it begin with the database. It flows across the stack. To ensure a great user experience, you canʼt afford to test in silos. You need to validate everything: the frontend behavior, the communication layers, and the backend logic. Thatʼs the reality of full-stack testing.

Let me walk you through how I approach this.

The Setup: One Stack, Two Perspectives

The application I test is built with Nuxt. Thatʼs Vue.js on the frontend and TypeScript on the backend, with GraphQL tying it all together. As a test automation engineer, I touch both sides of this architecture—not because itʼs trendy, but because itʼs necessary.

For backend validation, I use Apollo Client to send GraphQL queries directly and Vitest to run assertions and structure my tests. Apollo gives me full control over how requests are formed and lets me simulate various authentication and data scenarios. Vitest provides speed and flexibility—itʼs a natural fit when you're already working in a TypeScript ecosystem.

On the frontend, I use Cypress. As a Cypress ambassador, I try to push it beyond the typical “click and assert” scripts. I integrate it with the Vite preprocessor, which drastically speeds up test execution and allows me to fire GraphQL requests straight from the frontend, mimicking the exact behavior of the application. That means Iʼm not just testing UI responsiveness—Iʼm testing how the app interacts with live data and reacts to changes from the backend.

Real-World Example: End-to-End Data Flow

One recent feature involved dynamic filters on a dashboard. The UI displayed a list of user-specific reports, which could be filtered by tags and date range. Sounds simple. But behind the scenes? It was a dance of asynchronous requests, query variables, and conditional rendering.

Hereʼs how I approached it:

1. Backend Testing with Vitest + Apollo Client

I started by validating the GraphQL schema itself. Using Apollo Client, I was able to directly generate and send queries using the backendʼs actual schema. This gave me two immediate benefits. First, I was testing exactly how the backend was meant to be used—no mocks, no guesswork. Second, it allowed me to validate backwards compatibility. As the schema evolved, I could catch breaking changes early and ensure that previously working queries continued to function as expected. It became a safety net not just for testing logic, but also for protecting contracts across the frontend-backend boundary.

2. Frontend Testing with Cypress + GraphQL Hooks

Then I moved to the Cypress layer. Using the Vite-powered setup, I ran tests that triggered the exact same GraphQL requests the frontend would normally fire. This let me assert not only the visual state of the UI (filters appear, tables update, spinners disappear), but also the intent behind the data. Did the request send the correct variables? Is the frontend resilient when the backend returns zero results? What happens when the network lags?

3. Shared Learnings

During testing, I discovered a subtle mismatch: the frontend sent a null value for a filter that the backend didnʼt handle gracefully—it expected a string. This wasnʼt caught during development because each side worked “fine” in isolation. But full stack testing exposed the broken assumption between teams. That one bug could have led to users seeing an empty dashboard and wondering if theyʼd lost their data.

We fixed it quickly. But itʼs a perfect example of why holistic testing matters.

Why Full Stack Testing Matters

You donʼt win user trust with just pretty interfaces or fast APIs—you win it by making everything work together. Holistic testing ensures that communication between the frontend and backend is robust, assumptions are aligned, and users are never stuck waiting for a loading spinner that never ends.

The tools are important, but mindset matters more. You need to test like a user, think like a developer, and investigate like a detective. That means owning the stack, asking the awkward questions, and being unafraid to dig deep.

Full stack testing isnʼt just a buzzword. Itʼs a commitment to quality across every layer of your application.