nvdnkpr / intern

A next-generation code testing stack for JavaScript.

“Just make the Intern do the testing”

Intern is a complete test stack for JavaScript designed to help you write and run consistent, high-quality test cases for your JavaScript libraries and applications. It can be used to test any JavaScript code. Its functional testing capabilities can even be used to test non-JavaScript Web sites and apps, if you really want.

Features

• 100% AMD, 100% Promises/A-based API
• Instant one-off test execution in the browser or Node.js
• Full statement, branch, function, and line code coverage reporting with Istanbul
• Functional testing using the standard WebDriver API with a custom fluid, promises-wrapped interface based on WD.js
• Integration with Sauce Labs for super simple continuous integration
• Tested with Travis CI
• Extensible interfaces (comes with TDD, BDD, and objects)
• Extensible reporters (comes with basic console, WebDriver, and lcov reporters; tap planned)
• Extensible assertions using the Chai Assertion Library (or any other assertion library that throws errors)

Comparison

Feature	Intern	QUnit	Mocha	Jasmine	BusterJS	Karma
Code coverage analysis	Yes	No	Yes	No	Extension	Yes
True1 browser events	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Native AMD support	Yes	No	No	No	Extension	Extension
Stand-alone2 browser support	Yes	Yes	Build required	Build required	Experimental	No
Node.js support	Yes	No3	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Any4 assertion library	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	N/A
Default test interface	TDD, BDD, object	TDD	TDD, BDD, object	BDD	TDD, BDD	N/A
Extensible test interfaces	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	N/A
Extensible reporters	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	N/A
Asynchronous support	Promises	Globals	Callbacks	Polling	Callbacks, Promises	Callbacks
Selenium support	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Built-in CI support	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Built-in Sauce Labs integration	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Built-in Travis CI integration	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes
Grunt support	Yes	3rd party	3rd party	3rd party	3rd party	3rd party

1: True events are not generated by JavaScript within the sandbox, so are able to accurately emulate how a user actually interacts with the application. Synthetic events generated by other test frameworks are limited by browser security restrictions.

2: Stand-alone means that unit tests can be executed in a browser by navigating to a URL without needing any special HTTP server or proxy for support.

3: Some older versions of QUnit can be used in conjunction with a 3rd party module to run on Node.js, but newer versions do not support Node.js and will break even with the use of 3rd party modules.

4: If it throws an error on failure, it works with Intern.

Quick start

1. Clone this repository as a sibling directory of the package (or packages) that you want to test.

   cd /my/project/root
   git clone --recursive https://github.com/theintern/intern.git
   

2. Use npm to install dependencies.

   cd intern
   npm install --production
   

3. Create a copy of the example configuration file in your package’s test directory and edit appropriately. See the configuration documentation for a list of all available options.

   cp tests/example.intern.js ../package/tests/intern.js
   

4. Verify your configuration works by running the Node.js client and seeing that no errors are output.

   node client.js config=package/tests/intern
   

5. Start writing tests! See the writing tests documentation to learn how.

More information

• Wiki Documentation
• Support

Do you hate kittens and love old IE?

If you need to support IE 6–8, there is also a version of Intern for legacy browsers.

License

Intern is available under the terms of the New BSD License. All code, with the exception of portions of the assert.js library and tests in the geezer branch, is developed under the terms of the Dojo Foundation CLA.

© 2012–2013 Colin Snover http://zetafleet.com
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