What is this?

Pruner is a universal test CLI that does the following:

• Runs your tests as soon as the code updates.
• Only runs the tests that are needed (the tests that run through the code you changed).
• Highlights code coverage with test status next to each line (see video below), so you know if you broke something, as you write it.
• Runs on your build server as well. Avoid wasting time waiting for your build server to run tests you already ran locally.
• Allows you to split tests in several chunks, useful for running tests in parallel across machines on a build server.

Optional: Get the Visual Studio extension

• Visual Studio Code: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Pruner.vscode
• Visual Studio: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Pruner.vs

Getting started

First you need to install the CLI. This requires Node installed.

npm i @pruner/cli -g

Language & framework support

Pruner supports several languages and frameworks. Pick the instructions for the language you want to use, to get started.

Note: If you are only using Pruner for test-splitting and don't want to split based on timing data, all languages are supported out of the box, and no setup is required.

dotnet (C# .NET, VB .NET)

Instructions: https://github.com/pruner/cli/blob/main/docs/dotnet.md

mocha (JavaScript)

Instructions: https://github.com/pruner/cli/blob/main/docs/mocha.md

Looking for more providers?

File an issue or feel free to submit a pull request!

Running tests

When you want to run your affected tests, use:

pruner run

Watch mode

There's also a watch mode available, which will automatically run affected tests as you save files in your projects:

pruner run --watch

Splitting tests

The syntax for splitting tests is pruner split <total-chunks> <chunk-offset> <glob-pattern>.

• <total-chunks> is the amount of total chunks you want to split your tests in.
• <chunk-offset> the zero-based chunk index to keep on disk.
• <glob-pattern> the glob-pattern for your tests.

Example

Let's say you have the following files in your repository:

tests/BarTest.cs
tests/BuzTest.cs
tests/FooTest.cs
tests/FuzTest.cs
tests/Helpers.cs
tests/SomeOtherFile.cs

If you then run the command pruner split 2 0 "**/*Test.cs", Pruner will split your tests in 2 chunks, and only keep chunk 0 (the first chunk) on the disk:

tests/BarTest.cs
tests/BuzTest.cs
tests/Helpers.cs
tests/SomeOtherFile.cs

If you instead run the command pruner split 2 1 "**/*Test.cs" Pruner will split your tests in 2 chunks, but instead keep chunk 1 (the second chunk) on the disk:

tests/FooTest.cs
tests/FuzTest.cs
tests/Helpers.cs
tests/SomeOtherFile.cs

GitHub Actions

See the build that triggers automatically on each push here: https://github.com/pruner/cli/blob/main/.github/workflows/split.yml

Splitting by timing data

By default, the tests are split based on the file count (an even file count on each chunk). If you want to split by timing data, you can do the following: pruner split <total-chunks> <chunk-offset> <glob-pattern> --by timings

This requires that you have run pruner run before, and committed your Pruner state file into GIT, so that Pruner has historic timing data to work with.

Comparison with other tools

As an alternative to NCrunch

NCrunch:

• Does not offer a free version. Pruner is free.
• Has not open-sourced their code. Pruner is fully open source.
• Only runs in Visual Studio. Pruner runs in Visual Studio Code as well, or on your build server.
• Does not remember your test state. Every time you reboot your machine, you have to re-run all tests again. Pruner persists your state to the disk, so that you can resume where you left off.

As an alternative to WallabyJS

WallabyJS:

• Does not offer a free version (except for Open Source projects). Pruner is free.
• Does not run other languages than JavaScript. Pruner supports several languages, and can combine all your test runs across technologies and frameworks in a single command.
• Does not remember your test state. Every time you reboot your machine, you have to re-run all tests again. Pruner persists your state to the disk, so that you can resume where you left off.
• Does not run on your build server. Pruner runs on your build server, allowing you to save time running tests there as well.

As an alternative to DotCover

DotCover:

• Does not offer a free version (except for Open Source projects). Pruner is free.
• Does not run other languages than dotnet (C#, VB). Pruner supports several languages, and can combine all your test runs across technologies and frameworks in a single command.
• Does not remember your test state. Every time you reboot your machine, you have to re-run all tests again. Pruner persists your state to the disk, so that you can resume where you left off.
• Does not run on your build server. Pruner runs on your build server, allowing you to save time running tests there as well.

Contributing

To contribute, you need to have the following installed:

• .NET SDK 5 (https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download)
• Global install of the NPM package mocha (npm i mocha -g)