Automatically run mocha specs either client-side via grunt/mocha/PhantomJS, or with a straight-up node.js mocha runner.

grunt-mocha

This plugin builds on the work from following projects:

Grunt
PhantomJS
grunt-simple-mocha
(package/README format heavily borrowed from grunt-jasmine-task and builtin QUnit task)

Getting Started

Important note

If you are not using AMD, include mocha-helper.js from tasks/mocha after you include mocha.js and run mocha.setup. The helper will override mocha.setup if it detects PhantomJS.

See the example folder for a vanilla example.

Example setup with AMD (advanced): https://gist.github.com/2655876

Grunt and this plugin

First, make sure you have grunt installed globally, npm install grunt -g

Install this grunt plugin next to your project's grunt.js gruntfile with: npm install grunt-mocha

Then add this line to your project's grunt.js gruntfile at the bottom:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-mocha');

Also add this to the grunt.initConfig object in the same file:

mocha: {
  index: ['specs/index.html']
},

The plugin will automatically detect if the list of files contains html files, and will run the tests with phantomJS if any are found. Replace specs/index.html with the location of your mocha spec running html file.

Otherwise the task will run the tests in straight-up node.js mocha runner. Example configuration:

js: ['js/**/*.js', 'test/unit/**/*.js'],
unit: {
    src: [ 'js/**/*.js', 'test/unit/**/*.js' ],
    // or you can specifically define a multi-task to be run as unit test
    type: 'unit',
    // you can pass any of the usual options from grunt-simple-mocha
    options: {
        reporter: 'nyan'
    }
}

Now you can run the mocha task with grunt mocha, but it won't work. That's because you need...

PhantomJS

This task is for running Mocha tests in a headless browser, PhantomJS. See the FAQ on how to install PhantomJS.

Mocha

Use Mocha

If you are not using AMD, include mocha-helper.js from tasks/mocha after you include mocha.js and run mocha.setup. The helper will override mocha.setup if it detects PhantomJS.

See the example folder for a vanilla example.

Example setup with AMD (advanced): https://gist.github.com/2655876

Maybe Growl?

Growl support is optional. I'm not sure what the Windows situation is with growl.

Hacks

The PhantomJS -> Grunt superdimensional conduit uses alert. If you have disabled or aliased alert in your app, this won't work. I have conveniently set a global PHANTOMJS on window so you can conditionally override alert in your app.

lauripiispanen / grunt-mocha