README.md

Stryker

Professor X: For someone who hates mutants... you certainly keep some strange company. William Stryker: Oh, they serve their purpose... as long as they can be controlled.

Introduction

For an introduction to mutation testing and Stryker's features, see stryker-mutator.io.

Getting started

Please follow the quickstart on the website.

For small js projects, you can try the following command:

npm install --save-dev @stryker-mutator/core
# Only for small projects:
npx stryker run

It will run stryker with default values:

• Uses npm test as your test command
• Searches for files to mutate in the lib and src directories

Usage

$ npx stryker <command> [options] [configFile]

The main command for Stryker is run, which kicks off mutation testing.

Although Stryker can run without any configuration, it is recommended to configure it when you can, as it can greatly improve performance of the mutation testing process. By default, Stryker will look for a stryker.conf.js or stryker.conf.json file in the current working directory (if it exists). This can be overridden by specifying a different file as the last parameter.

Before your first run, we recommend you try the init command, which helps you to set up this config file and install any missing packages needed for your specific configuration. We recommend you verify the contents of the configuration file after this initialization, to make sure everything is setup correctly. Of course, you can still make changes to it, before you run Stryker for the first time.

The following is an example stryker.conf.json file. It specifies running mocha tests with the mocha test runner.

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stryker-mutator/stryker/master/packages/api/schema/stryker-core.json",
  "mutate": [
    "src/**/*.js",
    "!src/index.js"
  ],
  "testRunner": "mocha",
  "reporters": ["progress", "clear-text", "html"],
  "coverageAnalysis": "perTest"
}

As a stryker.conf.js file this looks like this:

/**
* @type {import('@stryker-mutator/api/core').StrykerOptions}
*/
module.exports = {
  mutate: [
    'src/**/*.js',
    '!src/index.js'
  ],
  testRunner: 'mocha',
  reporters: ['progress', 'clear-text', 'html'],
  coverageAnalysis: 'perTest'
};

Make sure you at least specify the testRunner options when mixing the config file and/or command line options.

Command-line interface

Stryker can also be installed, configured and run using the Stryker-CLI. If you plan on using Stryker in more projects, the Stryker-CLI is the easiest way to install, configure and run Stryker for your project.

You can install the Stryker-CLI using:

$ npm install -g stryker-cli

The Stryker-CLI works by passing received commands to your local Stryker installation. If you don't have Stryker installed yet, the Stryker-CLI will help you with your Stryker installation. This method allows us to provide additional commands with updates of Stryker itself.

Supported mutators

See our website for the list of currently supported mutators.

Configuration

All configuration options can either be set via the command line or via a config file.

files and mutate both support globbing expressions using node glob. This is the same globbing format you might know from Grunt or Karma.

You can ignore files by adding an exclamation mark (!) at the start of an expression.

Available Options

• allowConsoleColors
• buildCommand
• cleanTempDir
• concurrency
• commandRunner
• coverageAnalysis
• dashboard.*
• dryRunTimeoutMinutes
• fileLogLevel
• files
• logLevel
• maxConcurrentTestRunners
• mutate
• mutator
• plugins
• reporters
• sandbox.fileHeaders
• sandbox.stripComments
• symlinkNodeModules
• tempDirName
• testRunner
• thresholds
• timeoutFactor
• timeoutMS

allowConsoleColors [boolean]

Default: true Command line: --allowConsoleColors true Config file: allowConsoleColors: true

The allowConsoleColors value indicates whether Stryker should use colors in console.

buildCommand [string]

Default: undefined
Command line: [-b|--buildCommand] "npm run build"
Config file: buildCommand: 'npm run build'

Configure a build command to run after mutating the code, but before mutants are tested. This is generally used to transpile your code before testing. Only configure this if your test runner doesn't take care of this already and you're not using just-in-time transpiler like babel/register or ts-node.

cleanTempDir [boolean]

Default: true
Command line: --cleanTempDir false
Config file: cleanTempDir: false

Choose whether or not to clean the temp dir (which is ".stryker-tmp" inside the current working directory by default) after a successful run. The temp dir will never be removed when the run failed for some reason (for debugging purposes).

concurrency [number]

Default: cpuCoreCount <= 4? cpuCoreCount : cpuCoreCount - 1
Command line: --concurrency 4
Config file: concurrency: 4

Set the concurrency of workers. Stryker will always run checkers and test runners in parallel by creating worker processes (note, not worker_threads). This defaults to n-1 where n is the number of logical CPU cores available on your machine, unless n <= 4, in that case it uses n. This is a sane default for most use cases.

commandRunner [object]

Default: { command: 'npm test' } Command line: none Config file: commandRunner: { command: 'npm run mocha' }

With commandRunner, you can specify the command to execute for running tests.

coverageAnalysis [string]

Default: off Command line: --coverageAnalysis perTest Config file: coverageAnalysis: 'perTest'

With coverageAnalysis you specify which coverage analysis strategy you want to use.

Stryker can analyse code coverage results. This can potentially speed up mutation testing a lot, as only the tests covering a particular mutation are tested for each mutant. This does not influence the resulting mutation testing score. It only improves performance.

The possible values are:

• off: Stryker will not determine the code covered by tests during the initial test run phase. All tests will be executed for each mutant during the mutation testing phase.

• all: Stryker will determine the code covered by all tests during the initial test run phase. Only mutants actually covered by your test suite are tested during the mutation testing phase. This setting requires your test runner to be able to report the code coverage back to Stryker. Currently, only the stryker-mocha-runner and the stryker-karma-runner do this.

• perTest: Stryker will determine the code covered by your test per executed test during the initial test run phase. Only mutants actually covered by your test suite are tested during the mutation testing phase. Only the tests that cover a particular mutant are tested for each one. This requires your tests to be able to run independently of each other and in random order. before and after each test, as well as test filtering. Currently all test runner plugins, except for @stryker-mutator/jest-runner) support this feature.

dashboard [DashboardOptions]

Default: { baseUrl: 'https://dashboard.stryker-mutator.io/api/reports', reportType: 'mutationScore' } Command line: --dashboard.project github.com/my-org/my-project --dashboard.version branch-or-tag --dashboard.module my-module --dashboard.baseUrl https://dashboard.stryker-mutator.io/api/reports --dashboard.reportType full Config file: { project: 'github.com/my-org/my-project', version: 'branch-or-tag', module: 'my-module', baseUrl: 'https://dashboard.stryker-mutator.io/api/reports', reportType: 'full' }

Settings for the dashboard reporter. See the stryker handbook for more info

fileLogLevel [string]

Default: off Command line: --fileLogLevel info Config file: fileLogLevel: 'info'

Set the log level that Stryker uses to write to the "stryker.log" file. Possible values: off, fatal, error, warn, info, debug and trace

files [string[]]

Default: result of git ls-files --others --exclude-standard --cached --exclude .stryker-tmp Command line: [--files|-f] src/**/*.js,a.js,test/**/*.js Config file: files: ['src/**/*.js', '!src/**/index.js', 'test/**/*.js']

With files, you can choose which files should be included in your test runner sandbox. This is normally not needed as it defaults to all files not ignored by git. Try it out yourself with this command: git ls-files --others --exclude-standard --cached --exclude .stryker-tmp.

If you do need to override files (for example: when your project does not live in a git repository), you can override the files here.

When using the command line, the list can only contain a comma separated list of globbing expressions. When using the config file you can provide an array with strings

You can ignore files by adding an exclamation mark (!) at the start of an expression.

dryRunTimeoutMinutes [number]

Default: 5
Command line: --dryRunTimeoutMinutes 5
Config file: dryRunTimeoutMinutes: 5

Use this option to configure an absolute timeout for the initial test run. Since it can take a while we use minutes as time unit.

logLevel [string]

Default: info Command line: --logLevel info Config file: logLevel: 'info'

Set the log level that Stryker uses to write to the console. Possible values: off, fatal, error, warn, info, debug and trace

Note: Test runners are run as child processes of the Stryker Node process. All output (stdout) of the testRunner is logged as trace. Thus, to see logging output from the test runner set the logLevel to all or trace.

DEPRECATED maxConcurrentTestRunners [number]

Default: (see concurrency) Command line: --maxConcurrentTestRunners 3 Config file: maxConcurrentTestRunners: 3

DEPRECATED. Please use concurrency instead.

mutate [string[]]

Default: ['{src,lib}/**/*.js?(x)', '!{src,lib}/**/__tests__/**/*.js?(x)', '!{src,lib}/**/?(*.)+(spec|test).js?(x)', '!{src,lib}/**/*+(Spec|Test).js?(x)'] Command line: [--mutate|-m] src/**/*.js,a.js Config file: mutate: ['src/**/*.js', 'a.js']

With mutate you configure the subset of files to use for mutation testing. Generally speaking, these should be your own source files. This is optional, as you can choose to not mutate any files at all and perform a dry-run (running only your tests without mutating).

mutator [MutatorDescriptor]

Default: {} Command line: none Config file: ``mutator: { plugins: ['classProperties', 'optionalChaining'], excludedMutations: ['BooleanSubstitution', 'StringLiteral'] }`

• plugins: allows you to override the default babel plugins to use for JavaScript files. By default, Stryker uses a default list of babel plugins to parse your JS file. It also loads any plugins or presets you might have configured yourself with .babelrc or babel.config.js files. In the rare situation where the plugins Stryker loads conflict with your own local plugins (for example, when using the decorators and decorators-legacy plugins together), you can override the plugins here to [].
• excludedMutations: allow you to specify a list of mutator names to be excluded (ignored) from the test run.

Note: prior to Stryker version 4, the mutator also needed a name (or be defined as string). This is removed in version 4. Stryker now supports mutating of JavaScript and friend files out of the box, without the need of a mutator plugin.

plugins [string[]]

Default: ['@stryker-mutator/*'] Command line: --plugins @stryker-mutator/jasmine-framework,@stryker-mutator/karma-runner Config file: plugins: ['@stryker-mutator/jasmine-framework', '@stryker-mutator/karma-runner']

With plugins, you can add additional Node modules for Stryker to load (or require). By default, all node_modules starting with @stryker-mutator/* will be loaded, so you would normally not need to specify this option. These modules should be installed right next to stryker. For a current list of plugins, you can consult npm or stryker-mutator.io.

reporters [string[]]

Default: ['clear-text', 'progress', 'html'] Command line: --reporters clear-text,progress,dots,dashboard,html,json Config file: reporters: ['clear-text', 'progress', 'dots', 'dashboard', 'html', 'json']

With reporters, you can set the reporters for stryker to use. These reporters can be used out of the box: html, json, progress, clear-text, dots, dashboard and event-recorder. By default, clear-text, progress, html are active if no reporters are configured. You can load additional plugins to get more reporters. See stryker-mutator.io for an up-to-date list of supported reporter plugins and a description on each reporter.

The html reporter allows you to specify an output folder. This defaults to reports/mutation/html. The config for your config file is: htmlReporter: { baseDir: 'mypath/reports/stryker' }

The json reporter allows specifying an output file name (may also contain a path). The config for your config file is: jsonReporter: { fileName: 'mypath/reports/mutation.json' }

The clear-text reporter supports three additional config options:

• allowColor to use cyan and yellow in printing source file names and positions. This defaults to true, so specify as clearTextReporter: { allowColor: false }, to disable if you must.
• logTests to log the names of unit tests that were run to allow mutants. By default, only the first three are logged. The config for your config file is: clearTextReporter: { logTests: true },
• maxTestsToLog to show more tests that were executed to kill a mutant when logTests is true. The config for your config file is: clearTextReporter: { logTests: true, maxTestsToLog: 7 },

The dashboard reporter sends a report to https://dashboard.stryker-mutator.io, enabling you to add a mutation score badge to your readme, as well as hosting your html report on the dashboard. It uses the dashboard.* configuration options. See the Stryker handbook for more info.

sandbox.fileHeaders [object]

Default: { "**/*+(.js|.ts|.cjs|.mjs)?(x)": "/* eslint-disable */\n// @ts-nocheck\n" } Command line: none Config file: sandbox: { fileHeaders: {} }

Configure additional headers to be added to files inside your sandbox. These headers will be added after Stryker has instrumented your code with mutants, but before a test runner or build command is executed. This is be used to ignore typescript compile errors and eslint warnings that might have been added in the process of instrumenting your code.

The key here is a glob expression, where the value points to the header to be used for matching files.

Note: The default setting should work for most use cases, only change this if you know what you are doing.

sandbox.stripComments [false | string]

Default: "**/*+(.js|.ts|.cjs|.mjs)?(x)" Command line: none Config file: sandbox: { stripComments: "" }

Configure files to be stripped of comments (either single line with // or multi line with /**/. These comments will be stripped after Stryker has instrumented your code with mutants, but before a test runner or build command is executed. This is used to remove any lingering // @ts-check or // @ts-expect-error comments that interfere with typescript compilation. The default setting allows comments to be stripped from all JavaScript and friend files in your sandbox, you can specify a different glob expression or set it to false to completely disable this behavior.

Note: The default setting should work for most use cases, only change this if you know what you are doing.

symlinkNodeModules [boolean]

Default: true Command line: none Config file: symlinkNodeModules: true

The symlinkNodeModules value indicates whether Stryker should create a symbolic link to your current node_modules directory in the sandbox directories. This makes running your tests by Stryker behave more like your would run the tests yourself in your project directory. Only disable this setting if you really know what you are doing.

For example, Jest expects any plugins to be located at "./node_modules/..." in the Sandbox directory. Another example can be running karma tests where you specify files from the 'node_modules/angular/...'. Without symlinking the node_modules directory this would not be possible.

Stryker will look for the node_modules directory to use in the current basePath (or current working directory) and its parent directories.

tempDirName [string]

Default: '.stryker-tmp' Command line: --tempDirName .stryker-tmp Config file: tempDirName: '.stryker-tmp'

Choose a different temp dir that Stryker uses for mutation testing. This directory will contain copies of your source code during a mutation test run. It will be created if it not exists and is entirely deleted after a successful run, so change this with caution.

It is advised to use a directory inside the directory that holds your repository. This way node_modules are resolved as expected. Be sure to not check-in your chosen temp directory in your .gitignore file.

Note: Use of "testFramework" is no longer needed. You can remove it from your configuration. Your test runner plugin now handles its own test framework integration

testRunner [string]

Default: 'command' Command line: --testRunner karma Config file: testRunner: 'karma'

With testRunner you specify the test runner that Stryker uses to run your tests. The default value is command. The command runner runs a configurable bash/cmd command and bases the result on the exit code of that program (0 for success, otherwise failed). You can configure this command via the config file using the commandRunner: { command: 'npm run mocha' }. It uses npm test as the command by default.

The command test runner can be made to work in any use case, but comes with a performance penalty, as Stryker cannot do any optimizations and just runs all tests for all mutants. If possible, you should try to use one of the test runner plugins that hook into your test runner of choice. For example: install and use the stryker-karma-runner to use karma as a test runner. See the list of plugins for an up-to-date list of supported test runners and plugins.

thresholds [object]

Default: { high: 80, low: 60, break: null } Command line: none Config file: thresholds: { high: 80, low: 60, break: null }

Description Specify the thresholds for mutation score.

• mutation score >= high: Awesome! Reporters should color this green and happy.
• high > mutation score >= low: Warning! Reporters should color this orange/yellow. Watch yourself!
• mutation score < low: Danger! Reporters should color this in red. You're in danger!
• mutation score < break: Error! Stryker will exit with exit code 1, indicating a build failure. No consequence for reporters, though.

It is not allowed to only supply one value of the values (it's all or nothing). However, high and low values can be the same, making sure colors are either red or green. Set break to null (default) to never let your build fail.

timeoutFactor [number]

Default: 1.5 Command line: --timeoutFactor 1.5 Config file: timeoutFactor: 1.5

See Timeout in milliseconds.

timeoutMS [number]

Default: 5000 Command line: --timeoutMS 5000 Config file: timeoutMS: 5000

When Stryker is mutating code, it cannot determine indefinitely whether a code mutation results in an infinite loop (see Halting problem). In order to battle infinite loops, a test run gets killed after a certain period of time. This period is configurable with two settings: timeoutMS and timeoutFactor. To calculate the actual timeout in milliseconds the, following formula is used:

timeoutForTestRunMs = netTimeMs * timeoutFactor + timeoutMS + overheadMs

Both netTimeMs and overheadMs are calculated during the initial test run. They are logged on info level. For example when overheadMs is 92 and netTimeMs is 5: Initial test run succeeded. Ran 6 tests in 4 seconds (net 5 ms, overhead 92 ms).

With timeoutFactor you can configure the allowed deviation relative to the time of a normal test run. Tweak this if you notice that mutants are prone to creating slower code, but not infinite loops. timeoutMS lets you configure an absolute deviation. Use it, if you run Stryker on a busy machine and you need to wait longer to make sure that the code indeed entered an infinite loop.

Note: Support for "transpilers" plugins is removed since Stryker 4. You can now configure your own buildCommand

Programmatic use

Stryker can also be used programmatically from nodejs. It exports 2 classes for you to use: Stryker and StrykerCli.

import { Stryker, StrykerCli } from '@stryker-mutator/core';

Both classes can be used to run Stryker. The main difference is that Stryker is a slightly more low-level approach, while StrykerCli is the strait up CLI api.

In this example you can see how to use both.

async function main() {
  // Runs Stryker as if it was called directly from the cli. Not even returns a promise, it assumes to be allowed to call `process.exit`.
  new StrykerCli(process.argv /* RAW argv array */ ).run(); 

  // Runs Stryker, will not assume to be allowed to exit the process.
  const stryker = new Stryker({ concurrency: 4 } /* Partial Stryker options object */ );
  const mutantResults = await stryker.runMutationTest();
  // mutantResults or rejected with an error.
}

Stryker is written in TypeScript, so it is recommended to use Stryker as well to get the best developer experience.