Configuring Vitest

Configuration

vitest will read your root vite.config.ts when it is present to match with the plugins and setup as your Vite app. If you want to have a different configuration for testing, you could either:

  • Create vitest.config.ts, which will have the higher priority
  • Pass --config option to CLI, e.g. vitest --config ./path/to/vitest.config.ts
  • Use process.env.VITEST to conditionally apply different configuration in vite.config.ts

To configure vitest itself, add test property in your Vite config. You'll also need to add a reference to Vitest types using a triple slash command at the top of your config file.

/// <reference types="vitest" />
import { defineConfig } from 'vite'

export default defineConfig({
  test: {
    // ...
  },
})

Options

include

  • Type: string[]
  • Default: ['**/*.{test,spec}.{js,mjs,cjs,ts,mts,cts,jsx,tsx}']

Include globs for test files

exclude

  • Type: string[]
  • Default: ['**/node_modules/**', '**/dist/**', '**/cypress/**', '**/.{idea,git,cache,output,temp}/**']

Exclude globs for test files

deps

  • Type: { external?, inline? }

Handling for dependencies inlining or externalizing

deps.external

  • Type: (string | RegExp)[]
  • Default: ['**\/node_modules\/**']

Externalize means that Vite will bypass the package to native Node. Externalized dependencies will not be applied Vite's transformers and resolvers, so they do not support HMR on reload. Typically, packages under node_modules are externalized.

deps.inline

  • Type: (string | RegExp)[]
  • Default: []

Vite will process inlined modules. This could be helpful to handle packages that ship .js in ESM format (that Node can't handle).

globals

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false

By default, vitest does not provide global APIs for explicitness. If you prefer to use the APIs globally like Jest, you can pass the --globals option to CLI or add globals: true in the config.

// vite.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'vite'

export default defineConfig({
  test: {
    globals: true,
  },
})

To get TypeScript working with the global APIs, add vitest/globals to the types filed in your tsconfig.json

// tsconfig.json
{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "types": ["vitest/globals"]
  }
}

If you are already using unplugin-auto-import in your project, you can also use it directly for auto importing those APIs.

// vite.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
import AutoImport from 'unplugin-auto-import/vite'

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    AutoImport({
      imports: ['vitest'],
      dts: true, // generate TypeScript declaration
    }),
  ],
})

environment

  • Type: 'node' | 'jsdom' | 'happy-dom'
  • Default: 'node'

The environment that will be used for testing. The default environment in Vitest is a Node.js environment. If you are building a web application, you can use browser-like environment through either jsdom or happy-dom instead.

By adding a @vitest-environment docblock or comment at the top of the file, you can specify another environment to be used for all tests in that file:

Docblock style:

/**
 * @vitest-environment jsdom
 */

test('use jsdom in this test file', () => {
  const element = document.createElement('div')
  expect(element).not.toBeNull()
})

Comment style:

// @vitest-environment happy-dom

test('use happy-dom in this test file', () => {
  const element = document.createElement('div')
  expect(element).not.toBeNull()
})

For compatibility with Jest, there is also a @jest-environment:

/**
 * @jest-environment jsdom
 */

test('use jsdom in this test file', () => {
  const element = document.createElement('div')
  expect(element).not.toBeNull()
})

update

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false

Update snapshot files

watch

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false

Enable watch mode

root

  • Type: string

Project root

reporters

  • Type: Reporter | Reporter[]
  • Default: 'default'

Custom reporters for output. Reporters can be a Reporter instance or a string to select built in reporters:

  • 'default' - collapse suites when they pass
  • 'verbose' - keep the full task tree visible
  • 'dot' - show each task as a single dot
  • 'junit' - JUnit XML reporter
  • 'json' - give a simple JSON summary

outputFile

  • Type: string

Write test results to a file when the --reporter=json or --reporter=junit option is also specified.

threads

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: true

Enable multi-threading using tinypool (a lightweight fork of Piscina)

maxThreads

  • Type: number
  • Default: available CPUs

Maximum number of threads

minThreads

  • Type: number
  • Default: available CPUs

Minimum number of threads

interopDefault

  • Type: boolean

testTimeout

  • Type: number
  • Default: 5000

Default timeout of a test in milliseconds

hookTimeout

  • Type: number
  • Default: 5000

Default timeout of a hook in milliseconds

silent

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false

Silent mode

setupFiles

  • Type: string | string[]

Path to setup files

globalSetup

  • Type: string | string[]

Path to global setup files, relative to project root

A global setup file can either export named functions setup and teardown or a default function that returns a teardown function (example).

INFO

Multiple globalSetup files are possible. setup and teardown are executed sequentially with teardown in reverse order.

watchIgnore

  • Type: (string | RegExp)[]
  • Default: ['**\/node_modules\/**', '**\/dist/**']

Pattern of file paths to be ignore from triggering watch rerun

isolate

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: true

Isolate environment for each test file

coverage

  • Type: C8Options
  • Default: undefined

Coverage options

open

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false

Open Vitest UI (WIP)

api

  • Type: boolean | number
  • Default: false

Listen to port and serve API. When set to true, the default port is 55555

clearMocks

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false

Will call .mockClear() on all spies before each test

mockReset

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false

Will call .mockReset() on all spies before each test

restoreMocks

  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false

Will call .mockRestore() on all spies before each test

transformMode

  • Type: { web?, ssr? }

Determine the transform method of modules

transformMode.ssr

  • Type: RegExp[]
  • Default: [/\.([cm]?[jt]sx?|json)$/]

Use SSR transform pipeline for the specified files.
Vite plugins will receive ssr: true flag when processing those files.

transformMode.web

  • Type: RegExp[]
  • Default: modules other than those specified in transformMode.ssr

First do a normal transform pipeline (targeting browser), then then do a SSR rewrite to run the code in Node.
Vite plugins will receive ssr: false flag when processing those files.

When you use JSX as component models other than React (e.g. Vue JSX or SolidJS), you might want to config as following to make .tsx / .jsx transformed as client-side components:

import { defineConfig } from 'vite'

export default defineConfig({
  test: {
    transformMode: {
      web: [/\.[jt]sx$/],
    },
  },
})

snapshotFormat

  • Type: PrettyFormatOptions

Format options for snapshot testing.