How can I create a shortcut task for a single test in Gradle?

Question

In Gradle, I can run a single test from the command line as follows:

gradle -Dtest.single=VeryCriticalTestX test

VeryCriticalTestX is frequently executed alone, and I'd like to provide a more readable and flexible API to my fellow developers. Ideally, they would only need to run

gradle testCritical

without worrying about the test's name. This would also allow me to change the name over time without breaking Jenkins builds.

How do I do achieve this?

Answer 1

Gradle's Test-Tasks can be configured to only include tests matching a given name pattern. You can create a new task testCritical as follows:

task testCritical(type: Test) {
    group = 'verification'
    description = 'Runs a very critical test'

    outputs.upToDateWhen { false }

    include('**/VeryCriticalTestX.class')
}

With this, renaming VeryCriticalTestX to something else doesn't break other people's commands or Jenkins jobs. However, there is the risk that someone accidentally disables this task by renaming the VeryCriticalTestX without adapting the task configuration. This can be prevented with the following TaskExecutionListener:

// verify that testCritical is not skipped unexpectedly due to a renamed classfile
// we detect this using Gradle's NO-SOURCE TaskState
gradle.addListener(new TaskExecutionListener() {
  void beforeExecute(Task task) {}
  void afterExecute(Task task, TaskState state) {
    if (checkJooqEnumBindings.equals(task) && state.getNoSource()) {
       throw new GradleException("testCritical did not run because it couldn't find VeryCriticalTestX")
    }
  }
})