I am testing with Spring Boot (3.3.0) and Cucumber (7.18.0). I have a repository which I want to mock and I have included the necessary (I think) configuration for Spring and Cucumber but I get
“java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke “com.example.sampleproject.repository.ArtistRepository.findById(Object)” because “this.artistRepository” is null”.

Here is my step def class:

@SpringBootTest
@ContextConfiguration(classes = {SampleProjectApplication.class, CucumberSpringConfiguration.class})
public class FindArtistByIdStepDefs {

    @MockBean
    private ArtistRepository artistRepository;
    private DataLoaderService dataLoaderService;
    

    private List<ArtistEntity> mockedArtists = new ArrayList<>();
    private List<AlbumEntity> mockedAlbums = new ArrayList<>();

    public FindArtistByIdStepDefs(DataLoaderService dataLoaderService) {
        this.dataLoaderService = dataLoaderService;
    }

    @Given("artists exist in the DB")
    public void theFollowingArtistsExistInTheDB(DataTable dataTable) {
        List<Map<String, String>> map = dataTable.asMaps(String.class, String.class);

        for (Map<String, String> row : map) {
            ArtistEntity artist = new ArtistEntity();
            String name = row.get("name");
            String description = row.get("description");
            long id = Long.parseLong(row.get("id"));
            artist.setArtist(name);
            artist.setDescription(description);
            artist.setId(id);
            mockedArtists.add(artist);

            Mockito.when(artistRepository.findById(artist.getId())).thenReturn(Optional.of(artist));
        }

Then I have CucumberSpring config:

@CucumberContextConfiguration
@SpringBootTest(classes = SampleProjectApplication.class)
public class CucumberSpringConfiguration {

    public CucumberSpringConfiguration() {
        System.out.println("CucumberSpringConfiguration initialized");
    }
}

Test Runner:

@Suite
@SelectClasspathResource("features")
@ConfigurationParameter(key = GLUE_PROPERTY_NAME, value = "com.example.sampleproject.steps, com.example.sampleproject.config")
public class TestRunner {
}

When I add @CucumberContextConfiguration on the FindArtistByIdStepDefs class and remove the other it works. But I want this configuration to be more centralized since I have another step def class and plan to have more.

What might be causing @MockBean to result in a NullPointerException when using a centralized configuration? How can I ensure that the MockBean is properly injected while keeping a centralized configuration?