poku

🐷 Poku makes testing easy for Node.js, Bun, Deno, and you at the same time.

1063

TypeScript

Poku

Enjoying Poku? Give him a star to show your support 🌟

🐷 Website • 📘 Documentation • 🧪 Examples • 🧑🏻‍🎓 Tutorials

[!IMPORTANT]

Poku v3 is here! 🎉

To check out what’s changed, follow the Issue #801.

For v2 documentation, see the previous version’s documentation and README.

Why does Poku exist?

💡 Poku is a cross-platform test runner that brings the JavaScript essence back to testing.

High isolation level per file

Performant and lightweight

Auto detect ESM, CJS, and TypeScript files

Run the same test suite for Node.js, Bun, and Deno

Easily handle servers, processes, ports, and even containers ✨

Quickstart

Install

# Node.js
npm i -D poku

# TypeScript (Node.js)
npm i -D poku tsx

# Bun
bun add -d poku

# Deno (optional)
deno add npm:poku

Test

test/file.test.mjs

import { assert } from 'poku';

assert(true, 'Poku will describe it 🐷');

Run

Node.js (and TypeScript)	Bun	Deno
`npx poku`	`bun poku`	`deno run npm:poku`

Features

Essentials

poku	🧪 Test runner.
assert	🔍 Test assertion (Node.js* familiar API)*.
strict	🔬 Strict test assertion (Node.js* familiar API)*.

Helpers

test • describe • it	🤹🏻‍♀️ Organize, group, and isolate tests.
envFile	⚙️ Process an environment file (out-of-box).
beforeEach • afterEach	🃏 Hooks for test setup and teardown.
startScript	🌐 Run package.json scripts in background.
startService	🌐 Run files in background.
docker	🐳 Build, start, compose, stop, remove, and test containers.
kill	🔌 Terminate ports, port ranges, and PIDs.
waitForPort	😴 Wait for specified ports to become active.
waitForExpectedResult	🥱 Retry until an expected result or times out.
skip	⏭️ Skip tests when necessary.
only	🌌 Debug tests by enabling selective runs.
getPIDs	🕵🏻 Debug processes IDs using ports and port ranges.

Common Options

watch	🍿 Watch for changes and re-run related test files.
debug	🕵🏻 Shows all logs.
config	⚙️ Customize your Poku options in a config file.

and much more 👇🏻

Documentation and Examples

To see the detailed documentation, please visit the Documentation and Examples sections in the Poku’s website.

Tutorials

Poku offers mini-lessons for different users needs in the Quick Tutorials section.

Common Issues

Quick Comparisons

Performance

Poku is continuously tested to ensure the following expectations for basic usage:

~4x faster than Jest (v29.7.0)
~4x faster than Vitest (v3.0.6)
~1x faster than Mocha (v11.1.0) — even with test file isolation

You can see how the tests are run and compared in the benchmark directory.

Comparing Poku and native test runners (discussion).

Installation Size

Poku size ensures cost-saving CI for services that charge for storage and usage.

Security Policy

Please check the SECURITY.md.

Contributing

See the Contributing Guide and please follow our Code of Conduct 🚀

Acknowledgements

Contributors

My thanks to everyone who has dedicated their time and effort to improving Poku.