# Recording a journey

A journey is recorded, never written. You use your app in the recorder the way a customer would, and BitAssure writes down each step and each check exactly as you made it.

## Opening the recorder

- **A new journey:** on a platform, press **New journey**, name it, and press **Create and open**.
- **Adding to a journey:** on the journey's page, press **Add more checks**. The recorder carries on from where the journey's last scenario ends.
- **Editing one scenario:** on the journey's **Checks** tab, press **Edit** beside the scenario. See [Changing a journey](/docs/changing-a-journey).

The recorder opens a real browser or phone on our side and shows it to you. A website opens at the platform's address. A phone opens your uploaded app.

## The recorder's parts

- **The screen.** Everything you can act on is highlighted. Click one to choose it. **Look again** takes a fresh picture if the screen changed after the last one, for example after an animation finished.
- **Selected element.** What you chose, and two groups of buttons:
  - **This should be…** adds a check about it (see [Checks](/docs/checks)).
  - **Events** act on it: **Click it**, **Type a value**, **Empty it**, **Choose an option**, **Set a date**, **Double-click**, **Press and hold**, **Wait for it**, drag, scroll inside it, and more. Rarer ones are under **Everything else you can do**.
- **Move the screen.** Actions that need no element: **Back**, **Scroll down**, **Scroll up**, **Scroll until you see…**, **Press Enter**, **Press Tab**, **Press Escape**, and the pop-up answers **Accept the pop-up**, **Dismiss the pop-up** and **Type into the pop-up**. Phones add swipes, **Turn sideways** and **Put the keyboard away**. Websites add **Leave the frame** and **Go to the new window**.
- **Steps.** The scenario's steps with its checks written in between, in the order you made them. Steps that got you here from earlier scenarios are folded away at the top. Remove a step with its **×** and the recorder walks the app again without it.
- **Scenario name** and the save buttons, at the bottom.

## Values you type

When an action needs a value, such as text to type, an option to choose or a date, the recorder asks for it in a small window. Dates are stored as a date (for example 15 October 2026), never as typed, so the same step means the same date on every machine and phone.

Do not record real passwords or personal data you would not want in a report. Use a test account.

## Scenarios: where to stop

A scenario ends when you say so, never when the app moves. Stop at each screen where something should be checked:

1. Walk to the screen.
2. Add the checks that should hold there.
3. Check the **Scenario name**. It starts as "Verify" followed by the screen's own name, for example "Verify Checkout", and follows the screen until you type over it.
4. Press **Save and continue** to carry on to the next screen, or **Save and end** to finish.

Nothing is written until you save. **End** at the top asks whether to save or discard anything unsaved. Discarding leaves the journey exactly as it was.

## A check is judged where you added it

Each check is judged at its place in the walk, not at the end of the scenario. "Confirm is enabled" added before you typed an amount and the same check added after it are two different claims, and a run judges each one at the point you made it.

## Journeys that start where another ends

On the journey's page, under **Runs first**, press **Add a prerequisite** and choose another journey, such as "Sign in". From then on:

- the recorder walks the prerequisite first and starts you where it ends, already signed in
- a run walks the prerequisite first too, and a failure there is reported as a failure there

The prerequisite is recorded once and shared by every journey that needs it, so a change to the sign-in page is fixed in one place.

## Several scenarios on a phone

Before a run walks a scenario from its first step, it starts over: on Android it clears the app's data, on an iPhone it closes and reopens the app, and on a website the browser forgets its cookies and anything the site saved, so a scenario recorded signed out is never walked by a browser that is still signed in. A run of a whole platform does this before every scenario after the first, because each one starts from the beginning. The run page says when it did this, so the video showing a fresh start is never a surprise.

## What recording costs

The browser or phone is ours while the recorder is open, so recording is charged by the clock:

| Platform | While the recorder is open |
|---|---|
| Website | 1 credit per 10 minutes |
| Android or iPhone | 1 credit per minute |

Charging starts only once the browser or phone is ready, so one that never comes up costs nothing.

If you stop using it, the recorder asks "Still using it?" after two minutes and switches the browser or phone off if nobody answers. Closing the tab does the same a few minutes later. Your unsaved draft is kept for 24 hours: open the recorder again and **Carry on** opens a new device and walks your draft's steps again. Running out of credits switches it off the same way, keeping the draft.

An account can have two recorders open at once.