REPL Runner

Prerelease

TestItemREPL.jl is currently a prerelease package. The API and behavior may change before the first stable release.

TestItemREPL.jl provides an interactive REPL mode for running test items directly from the Julia terminal. It gives you live progress, filtering, background runs, and result inspection — all without leaving the REPL.

Setup

Install TestItemREPL.jl into your global environment:

using Pkg
Pkg.add(url="https://github.com/julia-testitem/TestItemREPL.jl")

Then load it in the REPL:

using TestItemREPL

Activating the Test Mode

Press ) at the julia> prompt to enter the test REPL mode. The prompt changes to test>:

julia> )
test>

Press Backspace on an empty line to return to the normal julia> prompt.

Commands

list / ls

Discover and list all test items in a project.

test> list [path] [--tags=tag1,tag2]

• path — Directory to scan. Defaults to the current working directory.
• --tags=tag1,tag2 — Filter by tags (comma-separated).

run

Run tests synchronously, blocking the REPL until complete. Press Esc to cancel.

test> run [+channel] [path] [--workers=N] [--timeout=S] [--tags=tag1,tag2] [--coverage]

• path — Directory or partial test item name to filter by.
• +channel — Juliaup channel to use (e.g. +lts, +release, +nightly).
• --workers=N — Number of parallel worker processes. Default: min(Sys.CPU_THREADS, 8).
• --timeout=S — Per-test-item timeout in seconds. Default: 300.
• --tags=tag1,tag2 — Filter by tags.
• --coverage — Enable code coverage measurement.

Examples:

test> run
test> run /path/to/myproject
test> run +lts --workers=4 --timeout=60
test> run --tags=unit,fast

run&

Run tests asynchronously in the background. The REPL remains interactive so you can continue working.

test> run& [same options as run]

A run ID is printed when the background run starts. Use status to monitor progress and results to view results when complete.

status / st

Show progress of the current background test run.

test> status

Displays elapsed time and live counts of passed, failed, errored, and skipped tests.

cancel

Cancel an active background test run.

test> cancel [run_id]

Without an argument, cancels the current active run. Pass a run ID to cancel a specific run.

results / res

Display test results from the last completed run, or a specific run by ID.

test> results [id] [--name=pattern] [--verbose] [--output]

• id — Run ID to display (supports prefix matching). Defaults to the last run.
• --name=pattern — Filter by test item name (case-insensitive substring match).
• --verbose — Show full per-profile details including messages and output.
• --output — Show only captured stdout/stderr for each test item.

The default output shows a summary with color-coded counts, details of any failures, and the five slowest tests.

process-log / plog

Display the raw output log from a specific test process.

test> process-log <process_id>

help / ?

Show a summary of all available commands.

test> help

Parallel Execution

By default, TestItemREPL uses up to min(Sys.CPU_THREADS, 8) worker processes. Override this with the --workers flag:

test> run --workers=4
test> run --workers=1   # serial execution

Julia Version Selection

If you use Juliaup, you can run tests against a different Julia version by specifying a channel:

test> run +lts
test> run +release
test> run +nightly