diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index 0718622f8..41aba9f5f 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 # testthat (development version)
 
+* `test_that()` no longer warns about the absence of `{}` since it no longer seems to be necessary.
+* `test_that()`, `describe()`, and `it()` can now be arbitrarily nested. Each component will skip only if it and its subtests don't contain any expectations. The interactive stop reporter has been fixed so it doesn't duplicate failures. (#2063, #2188).
 * Test filtering now works with `it()`, and the `desc` argument can take a character vector in order to recursively filter subtests (i.e. `it()` nested inside of `describe()`) (#2118).
 * New `snapshot_reject()` rejects all modified snapshots by deleting the `.new` variants (#1923).
 * New `SlowReporter` makes it easier to find the slowest tests in your package. The easiest way to run it is with `devtools::test(reporter = "slow")` (#1466).
diff --git a/R/describe.R b/R/describe.R
index d2feb94cd..5a3300062 100644
--- a/R/describe.R
+++ b/R/describe.R
@@ -60,7 +60,8 @@
 describe <- function(description, code) {
   local_description_push(description)
 
-  test_code(code, parent.frame(), skip_on_empty = FALSE)
+  code <- substitute(code)
+  test_code(code, parent.frame())
 }
 
 #' @export
@@ -69,5 +70,5 @@ it <- function(description, code = NULL) {
   local_description_push(description)
 
   code <- substitute(code)
-  test_code(code, env = parent.frame(), skip_on_empty = FALSE)
+  test_code(code, parent.frame())
 }
diff --git a/R/local.R b/R/local.R
index eaa2a6411..0d1613c95 100644
--- a/R/local.R
+++ b/R/local.R
@@ -200,6 +200,7 @@ local_interactive_reporter <- function(.env = parent.frame()) {
   # Use StopReporter
   reporter <- StopReporter$new()
   old <- set_reporter(reporter)
+  withr::defer(reporter$end_reporter(), envir = .env)
   withr::defer(reporter$stop_if_needed(), envir = .env)
   withr::defer(set_reporter(old), envir = .env)
 
diff --git a/R/reporter-stop.R b/R/reporter-stop.R
index bf73bdc54..4c9f2a67b 100644
--- a/R/reporter-stop.R
+++ b/R/reporter-stop.R
@@ -45,9 +45,12 @@ StopReporter <- R6::R6Class(
         self$n_fail <- self$n_fail + 1
       }
       self$issues$push(result)
+
+      self$local_user_output()
+      self$cat_line(issue_summary(result, rule = TRUE), "\n")
     },
 
-    end_test = function(context, test) {
+    end_reporter = function(context, test) {
       self$local_user_output()
 
       if (self$issues$size() == 0) {
@@ -55,16 +58,12 @@ StopReporter <- R6::R6Class(
           emoji <- praise_emoji()
           self$cat_line(colourise("Test passed", "success"), " ", emoji)
         }
-      } else {
-        issues <- self$issues$as_list()
-        messages <- map_chr(issues, issue_summary, rule = TRUE)
-        self$cat_line(messages, "\n")
       }
     },
 
     stop_if_needed = function() {
       if (self$stop_reporter && self$n_fail > 0) {
-        cli::cli_abort("Test failed.")
+        cli::cli_abort("Test failed.", call = NULL)
       }
     }
   )
diff --git a/R/test-that.R b/R/test-that.R
index a08782dec..1308976ff 100644
--- a/R/test-that.R
+++ b/R/test-that.R
@@ -37,16 +37,7 @@ test_that <- function(desc, code) {
   local_description_push(desc)
 
   code <- substitute(code)
-  if (edition_get() >= 3) {
-    if (!is_call(code, "{")) {
-      cli::cli_warn(
-        "The {.arg code} argument to {.fn test_that} must be a braced expression to get accurate file-line information for failures.",
-        class = "testthat_braces_warning"
-      )
-    }
-  }
-
-  test_code(code, env = parent.frame())
+  test_code(code, parent.frame())
 }
 
 # Access error fields with `[[` rather than `$` because the
@@ -64,6 +55,15 @@ test_code <- function(code, env, reporter = NULL, skip_on_empty = TRUE) {
     withr::defer(reporter$end_test(context = reporter$.context, test = test))
   }
 
+  if (the$top_level_test) {
+    # Not strictly necessary but nice to reset the count
+    the$test_expectations <- 0
+    the$top_level_test <- FALSE
+    withr::defer(the$top_level_test <- TRUE)
+  }
+  # Used to skip if the test _and_ its subtests have no expectations
+  starting_expectations <- the$test_expectations
+
   ok <- TRUE
 
   # @param debug_end How many frames should be skipped to find the
@@ -88,13 +88,8 @@ test_code <- function(code, env, reporter = NULL, skip_on_empty = TRUE) {
   expressions_opt <- getOption("expressions")
   expressions_opt_new <- min(expressions_opt + 500L, 500000L)
 
-  # If no handlers are called we skip: BDD (`describe()`) tests are often
-  # nested and the top level might not contain any expectations, so we need
-  # some way to disable
-  handled <- !skip_on_empty
-
   handle_error <- function(e) {
-    handled <<- TRUE
+    the$test_expectations <- the$test_expectations + 1L
 
     # Increase option(expressions) to handle errors here if possible, even in
     # case of a stack overflow. This is important for the DebugReporter.
@@ -109,11 +104,11 @@ test_code <- function(code, env, reporter = NULL, skip_on_empty = TRUE) {
     invokeRestart("end_test")
   }
   handle_fatal <- function(e) {
-    handled <<- TRUE
+    the$test_expectations <- the$test_expectations + 1L
     register_expectation(e, 0)
   }
   handle_expectation <- function(e) {
-    handled <<- TRUE
+    the$test_expectations <- the$test_expectations + 1L
     register_expectation(e, 7)
     # Don't bubble up to any other handlers
     invokeRestart("continue_test")
@@ -143,7 +138,7 @@ test_code <- function(code, env, reporter = NULL, skip_on_empty = TRUE) {
     }
   }
   handle_skip <- function(e) {
-    handled <<- TRUE
+    the$test_expectations <- the$test_expectations + 1L
 
     debug_end <- if (inherits(e, "skip_empty")) -1 else 2
     register_expectation(e, debug_end)
@@ -168,7 +163,8 @@ test_code <- function(code, env, reporter = NULL, skip_on_empty = TRUE) {
       withCallingHandlers(
         {
           eval(code, test_env)
-          if (!handled && !is.null(test)) {
+          new_expectations <- the$test_expectations > starting_expectations
+          if (!new_expectations && skip_on_empty) {
             skip_empty()
           }
         },
diff --git a/R/testthat-package.R b/R/testthat-package.R
index c9fc25f67..799da070b 100644
--- a/R/testthat-package.R
+++ b/R/testthat-package.R
@@ -20,6 +20,8 @@ NULL
 
 the <- new.env(parent = emptyenv())
 the$description <- character()
+the$top_level_test <- TRUE
+the$test_expectations <- 0
 
 # The following block is used by usethis to automatically manage
 # roxygen namespace tags. Modify with care!
diff --git a/man/source_file.Rd b/man/source_file.Rd
index 04a212f0a..8f88de9a5 100644
--- a/man/source_file.Rd
+++ b/man/source_file.Rd
@@ -38,7 +38,9 @@ source_test_teardown(path = "tests/testthat", env = test_env())
 
 \item{chdir}{Change working directory to \code{dirname(path)}?}
 
-\item{desc}{If not-\code{NULL}, will run only test with this \code{desc}ription.}
+\item{desc}{A character vector used to filter tests. This is used to
+(recursively) filter the content of the file, so that only the non-test
+code up to and including the match test is run.}
 
 \item{wrap}{Automatically wrap all code within \code{\link[=test_that]{test_that()}}? This ensures
 that all expectations are reported, even if outside a test block.}
diff --git a/tests/testthat/_snaps/reporter-stop.md b/tests/testthat/_snaps/reporter-stop.md
index 24210c492..79a6d4681 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/_snaps/reporter-stop.md
+++ b/tests/testthat/_snaps/reporter-stop.md
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 # produces useful output
 
-    Test passed 
     -- Failure ('reporters/tests.R:12:3'): Failure:1 -------------------------------
     FALSE (`actual`) is not equal to TRUE (`expected`).
     
@@ -53,6 +52,6 @@
     Code
       r$stop_if_needed()
     Condition
-      Error in `r$stop_if_needed()`:
+      Error:
       ! Test failed.
 
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-describe.R b/tests/testthat/test-describe.R
index 53875c7b3..beb8e9c71 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-describe.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-describe.R
@@ -11,12 +11,18 @@ describe("describe", {
       })
     })
   })
+})
 
-  it("can have not yet implemented specs", {
-    describe("Millennium Prize Problems", {
-      it("can be shown that P != NP")
+test_that("unimplemented specs generate skips", {
+  expectations <- capture_expectations({
+    it("can have not yet implemented specs", {
+      describe("Millennium Prize Problems", {
+        it("can be shown that P != NP")
+      })
     })
   })
+  expect_length(expectations, 1)
+  expect_s3_class(expectations[[1]], "expectation_skip")
 })
 
 someExternalVariable <- 1
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-snapshot-manage.R b/tests/testthat/test-snapshot-manage.R
index 7269c4d13..1e352e960 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-snapshot-manage.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-snapshot-manage.R
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ test_that("can work with variants", {
 
 test_that("snapshot_reject deletes .new files", {
   path <- local_snapshot_dir(c("a.md", "a.new.md", "b.md", "b.new.md"))
-  
+
   expect_snapshot(snapshot_reject(path = path))
   expect_equal(dir(file.path(path, "_snaps")), c("a.md", "b.md"))
 })
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-test-that.R b/tests/testthat/test-test-that.R
index 486d51e72..5e4a355ad 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-test-that.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-test-that.R
@@ -121,9 +121,24 @@ test_that("return value from test_that", {
     })
   )
   expect_false(skip)
-  # No tests = automatically generated skip
-  with_reporter("", skip <- test_that("success", {}))
+})
+
+test_that("empty test skips automatically", {
+  expectations <- capture_expectations(skip <- test_that("success", {}))
   expect_false(skip)
+  expect_s3_class(expectations[[1]], "expectation_skip")
+})
+
+test_that("nested tests skipped correctly", {
+  expectations <- capture_expectations({
+    describe("outer", {
+      it("1")
+      it("2", expect_true(TRUE))
+    })
+  })
+  expect_length(expectations, 2)
+  expect_s3_class(expectations[[1]], "expectation_skip")
+  expect_s3_class(expectations[[2]], "expectation_success")
 })
 
 test_that("can signal warnings and messages without restart", {
@@ -133,12 +148,6 @@ test_that("can signal warnings and messages without restart", {
   expect_null(signalCondition(warning_cnd("foo")))
 })
 
-test_that("braces required in testthat 3e", {
-  local_edition(3)
-  expect_warning(
-    test_that("", expect_true(TRUE))
-  )
-})
 
 test_that("no braces required in testthat 2e", {
   local_edition(2)