# Incremental testing
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/incremental-testing/127680
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** documentation
**Created:** [April 3, 2025, 2:40pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/incremental-testing/127680 "2025-04-03T14:40:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@langestefan](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/langestefan)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2025, 2:40pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/incremental-testing/127680/1 "2025-04-03T14:40:00Z")
Hi,
I was reading the page on [unit testing](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/stdlib/Test/#Basic-Unit-Tests) and I found that the suggested method `] test` was rather slow due to pre-compilation, making it unusable for me during development.
There is a much faster way to incrementally run tests, using Revise.jl.
For example I have a file `test/runtests.jl` (from BestieTemplate.jl) which collects my tests.
```julia
#=
Don't add your tests to runtests.jl. Instead, create files named
test-title-for-my-test.jl
The file will be automatically included inside a `@testset` with title "Title For My Test".
=#
function runtests()
for (root, dirs, files) in walkdir(@ __DIR__ )
for file in files
if isnothing(match(r"^test-.*\.jl$", file))
continue
end
title = titlecase(replace(splitext(file[6:end])[1], "-" => " "))
@testset "$title" begin
@info "Running test: $file at dir $root"
include(root * '/' * file)
end
end
end
end
# Run the tests
runtests()
```
From Revise.jl I call [includet](https://timholy.github.io/Revise.jl/stable/user_reference/#Revise.includet) to track any changes to my tests:
```julia
julia> using Revise
includet("test/runtests.jl")
runtests()
```
Now I can run my tests, make changes, create new tests all without having to pre-compile.
Would it make sense to add this as a section to the unit testing docs?
---
### Author:  [@Satvik](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Satvik)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2025, 3:00pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/incremental-testing/127680/2 "2025-04-03T15:00:05Z")
I think it would be great to add something similar, or post a library that makes unit tests with Revise easier.
I have something similar in my monorepo:
```julia
function run_tests(test_names::Union{Nothing,Vector{String}}=nothing)
# When we pass in arguments on the command line, they're
# read into the Base.ARGS variable. This mimics that effect
empty!(Base.ARGS)
if !isnothing(test_names)
push!(Base.ARGS, "--include_tests")
append!(Base.ARGS, test_names)
end
current_file_path = @ __DIR__
project_path = dirname(dirname(current_file_path))
runtests_path = joinpath(project_path, "test", "runtests.jl")
include(runtests_path)
empty!(Base.ARGS)
return nothing
end
```
Which lets me run things like `run_tests(["db", "ml"])` and only run test sets that contain either of those strings, or `run_tests()` to run all tests, and works with Revise.
---
### Author:  [@langestefan](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/langestefan)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2025, 3:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/incremental-testing/127680/3 "2025-04-03T15:10:27Z")
A Julia library with the same kind of functionality that pytest offers would be fantastic. I know there are a few attempts out there but I don’t know any that are still actively maintained.
---
### Author:  [@abraemer](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/abraemer)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/incremental-testing/127680/4 "2025-04-03T17:54:40Z")
I think the Test Item framework is likely what your are looking for:
> **[Test Item Framework · Julia in VS Code](https://www.julia-vscode.org/docs/stable/userguide/testitems/)**
>
> Documentation for Julia in VS Code.
---
### Author:  [@langestefan](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/langestefan)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2025, 6:12pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/incremental-testing/127680/5 "2025-04-03T18:12:15Z")
Definitely seems to support a lot of useful features. Hopefully they will keep developing it. But I will still need to use the `Revise.jl` flow given above.