tstest is a TypeScript test runner that makes testing delightful. It's designed for modern development workflows with beautiful output, flexible test execution, and powerful features that make debugging a breeze.

✨ Key Features

🎯 Smart Test Execution - Run all tests, single files, or use glob patterns
🎨 Beautiful Output - Color-coded results with emojis and clean formatting
📊 Multiple Output Modes - Choose from normal, quiet, verbose, or JSON output
🔍 Automatic Discovery - Finds all your test files automatically
🌐 Cross-Environment - Supports Node.js and browser testing
📝 Detailed Logging - Optional file logging for debugging
⚡ Performance Metrics - See which tests are slow
🤖 CI/CD Ready - JSON output mode for automation
🏷️ Tag-based Filtering - Run only tests with specific tags
🎯 Parallel Test Execution - Run tests in parallel groups
🔧 Test Lifecycle Hooks - beforeEach/afterEach support
📸 Snapshot Testing - Compare test outputs with saved snapshots
⏳ Timeout Control - Set custom timeouts for tests
🔁 Retry Logic - Automatically retry failing tests
🛠️ Test Fixtures - Create reusable test data
📦 Browser-Compatible - Full browser support with embedded tapbundle

Installation

npm install --save-dev @gitzone/tstest
# or with pnpm
pnpm add -D @gitzone/tstest

Usage

Basic Test Execution

# Run all tests in a directory
tstest test/

# Run a specific test file
tstest test/test.mycomponent.ts

# Use glob patterns
tstest "test/**/*.spec.ts"
tstest "test/unit/*.ts"

Execution Modes

tstest intelligently detects how you want to run your tests:

Directory mode - Recursively finds all test files
File mode - Runs a single test file
Glob mode - Uses pattern matching for flexible test selection

Command Line Options

Option	Description
`--quiet`, `-q`	Minimal output - perfect for CI environments
`--verbose`, `-v`	Show all console output from tests
`--no-color`	Disable colored output
`--json`	Output results as JSON
`--logfile`	Save detailed logs to `.nogit/testlogs/[testname].log`
`--tags <tags>`	Run only tests with specific tags (comma-separated)

Example Outputs

Normal Output (Default)

🔍 Test Discovery
   Mode: directory
   Pattern: test
   Found: 4 test file(s)

▶️  test/test.ts (1/4)
   Runtime: node.js
   ✅ prepare test (1ms)
   Summary: 1/1 PASSED

📊 Test Summary
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ Total Files:                 4 │
│ Total Tests:                 4 │
│ Passed:                      4 │
│ Failed:                      0 │
│ Duration:                542ms │
└────────────────────────────────┘

ALL TESTS PASSED! 🎉

Quiet Mode

Found 4 tests
✅ test functionality works
✅ api calls return expected data
✅ error handling works correctly
✅ performance is within limits

Summary: 4/4 | 542ms | PASSED

Verbose Mode

Shows all console output from your tests, making debugging easier:

▶️  test/api.test.ts (1/1)
   Runtime: node.js
   Making API call to /users...
   Response received: 200 OK
   Processing user data...
   ✅ api calls return expected data (145ms)
   Summary: 1/1 PASSED

JSON Mode

Perfect for CI/CD pipelines:

{"event":"discovery","count":4,"pattern":"test","executionMode":"directory"}
{"event":"fileStart","filename":"test/test.ts","runtime":"node.js","index":1,"total":4}
{"event":"testResult","testName":"prepare test","passed":true,"duration":1}
{"event":"summary","summary":{"totalFiles":4,"totalTests":4,"totalPassed":4,"totalFailed":0,"totalDuration":542}}

Test File Naming Conventions

tstest supports different test environments through file naming:

Pattern	Environment	Example
`*.ts`	Node.js (default)	`test.basic.ts`
`*.node.ts`	Node.js only	`test.api.node.ts`
`*.chrome.ts`	Chrome browser	`test.dom.chrome.ts`
`*.browser.ts`	Browser environment	`test.ui.browser.ts`
`*.both.ts`	Both Node.js and browser	`test.isomorphic.both.ts`

Writing Tests

tstest includes a built-in TAP (Test Anything Protocol) test framework. Import it from the embedded tapbundle:

import { expect, tap } from '@git.zone/tstest/tapbundle';

tap.test('my awesome test', async () => {
  const result = await myFunction();
  expect(result).toEqual('expected value');
});

tap.start();

Module Exports

tstest provides multiple exports for different use cases:

@git.zone/tstest - Main CLI and test runner functionality
@git.zone/tstest/tapbundle - Browser-compatible test framework
@git.zone/tstest/tapbundle_node - Node.js-specific test utilities

Test Features

Tag-based Test Filtering

tap.tags('unit', 'api')
  .test('should handle API requests', async () => {
    // Test code
  });

// Run with: tstest test/ --tags unit,api

Test Lifecycle Hooks

tap.describe('User API Tests', () => {
  let testUser;
  
  tap.beforeEach(async () => {
    testUser = await createTestUser();
  });
  
  tap.afterEach(async () => {
    await deleteTestUser(testUser.id);
  });
  
  tap.test('should update user profile', async () => {
    // Test code using testUser
  });
});

Parallel Test Execution

// Files with matching parallel group names run concurrently
// test.auth.para__1.ts
tap.test('authentication test', async () => { /* ... */ });

// test.user.para__1.ts  
tap.test('user operations test', async () => { /* ... */ });

Test Timeouts and Retries

tap.timeout(5000)
  .retry(3)
  .test('flaky network test', async (tools) => {
    // This test has 5 seconds to complete and will retry up to 3 times
  });

Snapshot Testing

tap.test('should match snapshot', async (tools) => {
  const result = await generateReport();
  await tools.matchSnapshot(result);
});

Test Fixtures

// Define a reusable fixture
tap.defineFixture('testUser', async () => ({
  id: 1,
  name: 'Test User',
  email: 'test@example.com'
}));

tap.test('user test', async (tools) => {
  const user = tools.fixture('testUser');
  expect(user.name).toEqual('Test User');
});

Skipping and Todo Tests

tap.skip.test('work in progress', async () => {
  // This test will be skipped
});

tap.todo('implement user deletion', async () => {
  // This marks a test as todo
});

Browser Testing

// test.browser.ts
import { tap, webhelpers } from '@git.zone/tstest/tapbundle';

tap.test('DOM manipulation', async () => {
  const element = await webhelpers.fixture(webhelpers.html`
    <div>Hello World</div>
  `);
  expect(element).toBeInstanceOf(HTMLElement);
});

Advanced Features

Glob Pattern Support

Run specific test patterns:

# Run all unit tests
tstest "test/unit/**/*.ts"

# Run all integration tests
tstest "test/integration/*.test.ts"

# Run multiple patterns
tstest "test/**/*.spec.ts" "test/**/*.test.ts"

Important: Always quote glob patterns to prevent shell expansion. Without quotes, the shell will expand the pattern and only pass the first matching file to tstest.

Automatic Logging

Use --logfile to automatically save test output:

tstest test/ --logfile

This creates detailed logs in .nogit/testlogs/[testname].log for each test file.

Performance Analysis

In verbose mode, see performance metrics:

⏱️  Performance Metrics:
   Average per test: 135ms
   Slowest test: api integration test (486ms)

Parallel Test Groups

Tests can be organized into parallel groups for concurrent execution:

━━━ Parallel Group: para__1 ━━━
▶️  test/auth.para__1.ts
▶️  test/user.para__1.ts
   ... tests run concurrently ...
──────────────────────────────────

━━━ Parallel Group: para__2 ━━━
▶️  test/db.para__2.ts
▶️  test/api.para__2.ts
   ... tests run concurrently ...
──────────────────────────────────

Files with the same parallel group suffix (e.g., para__1) run simultaneously, while different groups run sequentially.

CI/CD Integration

For continuous integration, combine quiet and JSON modes:

# GitHub Actions example
tstest test/ --json > test-results.json

# Or minimal output
tstest test/ --quiet

Changelog

Version 1.8.0

📦 Embedded tapbundle directly into tstest project
🌐 Made tapbundle fully browser-compatible
📸 Added snapshot testing with base64-encoded communication protocol
🏷️ Introduced tag-based test filtering
🔧 Enhanced test lifecycle hooks (beforeEach/afterEach)
🎯 Fixed parallel test execution and grouping
⏳ Improved timeout and retry mechanisms
🛠️ Added test fixtures for reusable test data
📊 Enhanced TAP parser for better test reporting
🐛 Fixed glob pattern handling in shell scripts

Contribution

We are always happy for code contributions. If you are not the code contributing type that is ok. Still, maintaining Open Source repositories takes considerable time and thought. If you like the quality of what we do and our modules are useful to you we would appreciate a little monthly contribution: You can contribute one time or contribute monthly. :)

License

MIT licensed | © Lossless GmbH | By using this npm module you agree to our privacy policy