A VCR trick to include preparation and cleanup phases for external services directly within the test files (the phases run ONLY when recording cassettes)

vcr_intro.rb

# frozen_string_literal: true

# A VCR trick to include preparation and cleanup phases for external services
# directly within the test files (the phases run ONLY when recording cassettes):
#
#   RSpec.describe EvilMartiansAPI::Client, vcr: true do
#     let(:client) { described_class.new }
#
#     let(:developer_team_number) { 42 }
#
#     vcr_recording_setup { client.create_developer(developer_team_number) }
#     vcr_recording_teardown { client.delete_developer(developer_team_number) }
#
#     it 'starts the project with a freshly created developer in the team' do
#       client.start_the_next_big_thing([developer_team_number])
#     end
#   end
#
# For more details, see https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/ideal-http-client#testing
#
module VCRIntro
  module DSL
    def vcr_recording_setup(*args, &block)
      before(*args) { VCRIntro.run_without_cassette_recording(&block) }
    end

    def vcr_recording_teardown(*args, &block)
      after(*args) { VCRIntro.run_without_cassette_recording(&block) }
    end
  end

  module_function

  def setup
    VCR.configuration.ignore_request { Thread.current[:vcr_skip_cassette_recording] }
  end

  def run_without_cassette_recording(&block)
    return unless cassette_recording?

    Thread.current[:vcr_skip_cassette_recording] = true

    block.call
  ensure
    Thread.current[:vcr_skip_cassette_recording] = false
  end

  def cassette_recording?
    VCR.current_cassette&.recording?
  end
end

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.before(:suite) { VCRIntro.setup }
end
RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.extend VCRIntro::DSL

Getting:

XXX is not available on an example group (e.g. a `describe` or `context` block). It is only available from within individual examples (e.g. `it` blocks) or from constructs that run in the scope of an example (e.g. `before`, `let`, etc).

Which doesn't make sense to me because it is running in a before construct, any ideas?

@ardecvz Follow up, for some reason, the only thing I could get to work was this:

before do
  VcrHelpers.run_without_cassette_recording do
    # setup data for test
  end
end

after do
  VcrHelpers.run_without_cassette_recording do
    # destroy data used in test
  end
end

If you have any ideas why vcr_recording_setup wasn't working, it'd be much appreciated. Using rails 6.1.7, rspec 3.10.0, and rspec-rails 5.0.1. Regardless, the strategy was helpful for me, thanks!