Getting Started

This guide creates a small test scaffold and runs it with Smartest.

Requirements

Smartest is a Ruby test runner. The current development version is tested with Ruby 3.3.

Installation

Add Smartest to your application's Gemfile:

gem "smartest"

Then install it:

bundle install

Or install it directly:

gem install smartest

Create a Test File

Initialize a test scaffold:

bundle exec smartest --init

This creates smartest/test_helper.rb, smartest/fixtures/, smartest/matchers/, and smartest/matchers/predicate_matcher.rb:

require "smartest/autorun"

Dir[File.join(__dir__, "fixtures", "**", "*.rb")].sort.each do |fixture_file|
  require fixture_file
end

Dir[File.join(__dir__, "matchers", "**", "*.rb")].sort.each do |matcher_file|
  require matcher_file
end

around_suite do |suite|
  use_matcher PredicateMatcher
  suite.run
end

It also creates smartest/example_test.rb:

require "test_helper"

test("example") do
  expect(1 + 1).to eq(2)
end

The smartest CLI adds smartest/ to Ruby's load path before loading test files, so require "test_helper" works directly.

The generated helper loads every Ruby file under smartest/fixtures/ and smartest/matchers/ in sorted order, so test files do not need individual fixture or matcher file requires.

smartest/autorun in the helper does two things:

• makes the top-level test, around_suite, and around_test DSL available
• runs the registered tests when Ruby exits

use_fixture and use_matcher are available inside around_suite and around_test blocks, not as top-level methods.

Run the Test

bundle exec smartest

Expected output:

Running 1 test

✓ example

1 test, 1 passed, 0 failed

Next Steps

Continue with Writing Tests to learn how to structure tests and assertions, then read Fixtures when a test needs setup data or external resources.