test runner global configuration

[MoLow]

the question of global configuration for the test runner was raised on a few places,

• global timeout (test_runner: support timeout for tests #43505)
• reporters (node:test logs verbose feature #43574 (comment)) (console.log() does not work in the test runner #43034 (comment))
• gracful exit (test_runner: cancel on termination #43549 (comment))
• global concurrency
• test filtering (Add command-line test filtering to node:test #42984)

I think it is worth a small discussion about how to provide the ability to globaly configure the test runner.

a few things that might have already been noted in the above links:

• adding many cli flags dedicated for the test might be hard to maintain
• test runner potentially runs in multiple processes so propagation of the global configuration needs to be considered

[MoLow]

@nodejs/test_runner
@benjamingr

[MoLow]

my personal thoughts:
It is preferable for global configuration to be a js file so it can contain js functions/objects (i.e for some of the use cases above such as reporters)
one option is one single --test-config="file.js" flag to cover all configurations
another option is looking for a .testrc file

[aduh95]

FWIW @nodejs/loaders is also brainstorming how to make configuration a thing in nodejs/loaders#98 (comment), maybe we can find a solution that works for both.

[Jamesernator]

Specifying test files would be helpful too, at current the CLI shell expansions can be a bit limiting, for example using node --loader ts-node/esm --test **/*.test.ts will accidentally include files inside node_modules/. Being able to specify a test config with inclusions/exclusions would be considerably more helpful.

A couple bikesheds:

// maybe npm "files" like
export default {
    loader: "ts-node/esm",
    files: [
        "**/*.test.ts",
        "!node_modules/",
    ],
}

// maybe tsconfig like
export default {
   loader: "ts-node/esm",
   include: [
       "**/*.test.ts",
   ],
   exclude: [
       "node_modules/",
   ],
}

[JakobJingleheimer]

I would expect the files to live in a specific directory like ./src, in which case, couldn't you do node --loader ts-node/esm --test ./src/**/*.test.ts

[Jamesernator]

I would expect the files to live in a specific directory like ./src

It's a common pattern, but not one I often use for multiple reasons.

[MoLow]

Specifying test files can now be done using #44241,
closing this as this solves most of the use cases in this issue