Slowpoke

Find your slow tests. Fast.

A stupid-lightweight Ruby gem that identifies slow tests. Zero dependencies. Works with Minitest, RSpec, and anything that runs in Ruby.

Why

You don't need a profiler to know which tests are slow. You need a one-liner that tells you at the end of every run. That's Slowpoke.

What it does today (v0.1): flags tests slower than a threshold (default: 500ms) and prints a sorted report.

What's coming (v0.2): profiles why your tests are slow and suggests fixes with references, pros, and cons.

Install

# Gemfile
gem "slowpoke", group: :test

Setup

Minitest

# test/test_helper.rb
require "slowpoke/integrations/minitest"

# Optional configuration
Slowpoke.configure do |config|
  config.threshold = 0.5  # seconds (default: 0.5)
  config.color = true      # ANSI colors (default: true)
  config.sort = :slowest_first
end

RSpec

# spec/spec_helper.rb
require "slowpoke/integrations/rspec"

Slowpoke.configure do |config|
  config.threshold = 1.0  # be generous, or don't
end

Output

🐌 Slowpoke found 3 slow tests (>500ms):

  1203.4ms  UserTest#test_sends_welcome_email
            test/models/user_test.rb:42
  872.1ms   OrderTest#test_calculates_tax_for_international
            test/models/order_test.rb:18
  511.3ms   AuthTest#test_locks_after_failed_attempts
            test/integration/auth_test.rb:7

Tests over 2x the threshold show in red. Everything else in yellow.

Configuration

Option	Default	Description
threshold	0.5	Seconds. Tests slower than this get flagged.
color	true	ANSI color output.
sort	:slowest_first	Sort order for the report.
output	$stdout	Where to print. Any IO object works.

Design Principles

• Zero dependencies. The gem is just Ruby.
• No monkey-patching. Uses prepend for Minitest, around hooks for RSpec.
• Negligible overhead. Two Process.clock_gettime calls per test. That's it.

Roadmap

v0.2 — Slow Test Profiler

Slowpoke will analyze why tests are slow and suggest actionable fixes:

• Database heavy — too many records, missing fixtures, N+1 in setup
• Network calls — unmatched HTTP requests, missing VCR cassettes
• Sleep/wait — literal sleep calls, Capybara wait timeouts
• File I/O — temp files, large fixtures, disk-bound operations
• Setup bloat — expensive before(:each) that should be before(:all)

Each suggestion includes references, pros, cons, and estimated impact.

License

MIT