cli.md

title
Command Line Interface | Guide

Command Line Interface

Commands

vitest

Start Vitest in the current directory. Will enter the watch mode in development environment and run mode in CI automatically.

You can pass an additional argument as the filter of the test files to run. For example:

vitest foobar

Will run only the test file that contains foobar in their paths. This filter only checks inclusion and doesn't support regexp or glob patterns (unless your terminal processes it before Vitest receives the filter).

vitest run

Perform a single run without watch mode.

vitest watch

Run all test suites but watch for changes and rerun tests when they change. Same as calling vitest without an argument. Will fallback to vitest run in CI.

vitest dev

Alias to vitest watch.

vitest related

Run only tests that cover a list of source files. Works with static imports (e.g., import('./index.ts') or import index from './index.ts), but not the dynamic ones (e.g., import(filepath)). All files should be relative to root folder.

Useful to run with lint-staged or with your CI setup.

vitest related /src/index.ts /src/hello-world.js

::: tip Don't forget that Vitest runs with enabled watch mode by default. If you are using tools like lint-staged, you should also pass --run option, so that command can exit normally.

// .lintstagedrc.js
export default {
  '*.{js,ts}': 'vitest related --run',
}

:::

vitest bench

Run only benchmark tests, which compare performance results.

Options

Options
-v, --version	Display version number
-r, --root <path>	Define the project root
-c, --config <path>	Path to config file
-u, --update	Update snapshots
-w, --watch	Smart & instant watch mode
-t, --testNamePattern <pattern>	Run tests with full names matching the pattern
--dir <path>	Base directory to scan for the test files
--ui	Enable UI
--open	Open the UI automatically if enabled (default: true)
--api [api]	Serve API, available options: --api.port <port>, --api.host [host] and --api.strictPort
--threads	Enable Threads (default: true)
--silent	Silent console output from tests
--isolate	Isolate environment for each test file (default: true)
--reporter <name>	Select reporter: default, verbose, dot, junit, json, or a path to a custom reporter
--outputDiffMaxSize <length>	Object diff output max size (default: 10000)
--outputDiffMaxLines <lines>	Max lines in diff output window (default: 50)
--outputTruncateLength <length>	Truncate output diff lines up to <length> number of characters.
--outputDiffLines <lines>	Limit number of output diff lines up to <lines>.
--outputFile <filename/-s>	Write test results to a file when the --reporter=json or --reporter=junit option is also specified Via [cac's dot notation] you can specify individual outputs for multiple reporters
--coverage	Enable coverage report
--run	Do not watch
--mode	Override Vite mode (default: test)
--mode <name>	Override Vite mode (default: test)
--globals	Inject APIs globally
--dom	Mock browser api with happy-dom
--browser [options]	Run tests in the browser (default: false)
--environment <env>	Runner environment (default: node)
--passWithNoTests	Pass when no tests found
--logHeapUsage	Show the size of heap for each test
--allowOnly	Allow tests and suites that are marked as only (default: false in CI, true otherwise)
--dangerouslyIgnoreUnhandledErrors	Ignore any unhandled errors that occur
--changed [since]	Run tests that are affected by the changed files (default: false). See docs
--shard <shard>	Execute tests in a specified shard
--sequence	Define in what order to run tests. Use [cac's dot notation] to specify options (for example, use --sequence.shuffle to run tests in random order)
--no-color	Removes colors from the console output
--inspect	Enables Node.js inspector
--inspect-brk	Enables Node.js inspector with break
-h, --help	Display available CLI options

::: tip Vitest supports both camel case and kebab case for CLI arguments. For example, --passWithNoTests and --pass-with-no-tests will both work (--no-color and --inspect-brk are the exceptions).

Vitest also supports different ways of specifying the value: --reporter dot and --reporter=dot are both valid.

If option supports an array of values, you need to pass the option multiple times:

vitest --reporter=dot --reporter=default

Boolean options can be negated with no- prefix. Specifying the value as false also works:

vitest --no-api
vitest --api=false

:::

changed

• Type: boolean | string

• Default: false

  Run tests only against changed files. If no value is provided, it will run tests against uncommitted changes (including staged and unstaged).

  To run tests against changes made in the last commit, you can use --changed HEAD~1. You can also pass commit hash or branch name.

  If paired with the forceRerunTriggers config option it will run the whole test suite if a match is found.

shard

• Type: string

• Default: disabled

  Test suite shard to execute in a format of <index>/<count>, where

  • count is a positive integer, count of divided parts
  • index is a positive integer, index of divided part

  This command will divide all tests into count equal parts, and will run only those that happen to be in an index part. For example, to split your tests suite into three parts, use this:

  vitest run --shard=1/3
  vitest run --shard=2/3
  vitest run --shard=3/3

:::warning You cannot use this option with --watch enabled (enabled in dev by default). :::