Behaviour-driven automation builds on practices like configuration as code and infrastructure as code, where entire systems—hosts, services, and resources—are defined in code rather than configured manually. This makes deployments consistent, testable, and reproducible. However, traditional code-based approaches often rely on unwieldy files (like YAML), multiple tools (e.g., Terraform, Ansible), and scattered configurations. They capture what you install but not why, declaring the desired state of the system without explaining its intended behaviour.

Inspired by behaviour-driven development (BDD)—where automated tests describe a system’s desired behaviour—behaviour-driven automation (BDA) brings clarity to these definitions. Instead of listing packages and states, you describe outcomes and the reasons behind them. BDA is self-describing (human-readable specs) and self-testing (validating behaviour at every step). This outcome-focused approach not only makes automation easier to understand but also aligns infrastructure changes with real business objectives.

By applying BDA to Commerce as Code, teams move away from monolithic commerce engines and manual dashboard settings. Modernizing commerce systems in this way ensures every change is versioned, reproducible, and tied to a clear behavioural requirement—improving reliability, transparency, and innovation in digital commerce.

Dmytri Kleiner is the CXO at Saleor, where he leads the Customer Experience team and focuses on every part of the customer journey. With a long background in development and analysis, Dmytri has worked with many different technologies and platforms. He is enthusiastic about agile methodologies, iterative product development, and building communities. Dmytri started his career in the 1990s, developing financial systems, and enthusiastically moved into the online world, always looking for new practices and technologies. He has been part of innovative teams at companies like Red Hat, Contentful, Thoughtworks, Automattic and SoundCloud, among others.