gotestfmt

gotestfmt: go test output for humans

Are you tired of scrolling through endless Golang test logs in GitHub Actions (or other CI systems)?

Then this is the tool for you. Run it locally, or in any CI system with the following command line like this:

set -euo pipefail
go test -v ./... 2>&1 | tee /tmp/gotest.log | gotestfmt

Tadam, your tests will now show up in a beautifully formatted fashion. Plug it into your CI, and you're done.

Note: Please always save the original log. You will need it if you have to file a bug report for gotestfmt.

Setting it up in your CI system

We have support for several CI systems, and you can also customize the output to match your system. Gotestfmt detects the CI system based on environment variables. If it can't detect the CI system it will try to create a generic colored test output. You can force the CI output with the -ci github|gitlab|... option.

• GitHub Actions
• GitLab CI
• CircleCI
• Add your own

GitHub Actions

For GitHub Actions we provide gotestfmt-action, making it easy to use. Here's how you can set it up:

jobs:
  build:
    name: Test
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      # Checkout your project with git
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v2

      # Install Go on the VM running the action.
      - name: Set up Go
        uses: actions/setup-go@v2
        with:
          go-version: 1.16

      # Install gotestfmt on the VM running the action.
      - name: Set up gotestfmt
        uses: haveyoudebuggedit/gotestfmt-action@v1
        with:
          # Optional: pass GITHUB_TOKEN to avoid rate limiting.
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

      # Run tests with nice formatting. Save the original log in /tmp/gotest.log
      - name: Run tests
        run: |
          set -euo pipefail
          go test -v ./... 2>&1 | tee /tmp/gotest.log | gotestfmt

      # Upload the original go test log as an artifact for later review.
      - name: Upload test log
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
        if: always()
        with:
          name: test-log
          path: /tmp/gotest.log
          if-no-files-found: error

Gotestfmt provides specialized output for GitHub Actions based on the presence of the GITHUB_WORKFLOW environment variable. You can also set gotestfmt to run in GitHub Actions mode by providing the -ci github option.

In GitHub Actions mode gotestfmt will look for the rendering templates in the .gotestfmt/github and .gotestfmt folders, which can be customized.

GitLab CI

There are multiple ways to run gotestfmt in GitLab CI. You can simply download it from the releases section and use it that way, but we would recommend creating a custom container image to run the tests as follows:

# Include gotestfmt as a base image for building
FROM ghcr.io/haveyoudebuggedit/gotestfmt:latest AS gotestfmt

# Use the golang base image
FROM golang
# Copy gotestfmt into the golang image
COPY --from gotestfmt /gotestfmt /usr/local/bin/

You can then run the tests within this image with the following command:

go test -v ./... | /usr/local/bin/gotestfmt

To put it all together, you can use the following .gitlab-ci.yaml:

docker-build:
  image: docker:latest
  stage: build
  services:
    - docker:dind
  before_script:
    - docker login -u "$CI_REGISTRY_USER" -p "$CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD" $CI_REGISTRY
  script:
    - |
      docker build -t gotestfmt .
      docker run \
        -v $(pwd):/source \
        -v /tmp:/tmp |
        -e GITLAB_CI=${GITLAB_CI} \
        gotestfmt \
        /bin/sh -c "cd /source; go test -v ./... 2>&1 | tee /tmp/gotest.log | /usr/local/bin/gotestfmt"
  artifacts:
    paths:
      - /tmp/gotest.log
    expire_in: 1 week
  rules:
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH
      exists:
        - Dockerfile

You can, of course, customize this to your liking. We also recommend mirroring the gotestfmt image to your local registry to avoid rate limiting errors. See the GitLab blog on how to do this.

Gotestfmt detects running in GitLab CI based on the GITLAB_CI environment variable. You can also force gotestfmt to run in GitLab CI mode by passing the -c gitlab option.

CircleCI

There is no special template for CircleCI since it doesn't support advanced features like log folding. You can set up Circle CI by using the gotestfmt container directly:

version: 2
jobs:
  test:
    docker:
      - image: circleci/golang:1.16
    steps:
      - checkout
      - setup_remote_docker:
          version: 19.03.13
      - run:
          name: Run tests
          command: go test -v ./... 2>&1 | tee /tmp/gotest.log | docker run -i ghcr.io/haveyoudebuggedit/gotestfmt:latest
      - store_artifacts:
          path: /tmp/gotest.log
          destination: gotest.log
workflows:
  version: 2
  build-workflow:
    jobs:
      - test

Add your own CI

You can, of course, customize the output to match your CI system. This can be done by creating a folder named .gotestfmt in your project and adding the files below. You can find the default templates in the .gotestfmt folder in this repository.

When running on a well-known CI system, such as GitHub Actions, gotestfmt will detect that and look in the specific subfolder. If you think a specific CI system should have a custom template, please send us a pull request to this repository.

downloads.tpl

This file contains the output fragment showing the package downloads in the Go template format. It has the following variables available:

The Package items have the following format:

package.tpl

This template is the output format for the results of a single package and the tests in it. If multiple packages are tested, this template is called multiple times in a row. It has the following fields:

Test cases have the following format:

Architecture

Gotestfmt takes the output from go test, parses it and reformats it with the templates located in the .gotestfmt directory, or baked into the application.

This application has 3 main pieces: the tokenizer, the parser, and the renderer. All of them run in separate goroutines and pipeline data using channels.

The tokenizer takes the raw output from go test and turns it into a stream of events that can be consumed.

The parser takes the tokens from the tokenizer and interprets them, constructing logical units for test cases, packages, and package downloads.

Finally, the renderer takes the two streams from the parser and renders them into human-readable text templates, which are then streamed out to the main application for writing.

Building

If you wish to build gotestfmt for yourself you'll need at least Go 1.16. You can then build it by running go build cmd/gotestfmt.

License

This project is licensed under the Unlicense, you are free to do with it as you please. It has no external dependencies.