pytest-elegant

A pytest plugin that provides elegant, beautiful test output inspired by Pest PHP's aesthetic.

Features

• Clean, minimal output with ✓/✗ symbols instead of dots/F/E
• Colored results - green for passing tests, red for failures, yellow for skipped
• File grouping - Tests organized by file with PASS/FAIL headers
• Duration display - See how long each test takes (e.g., 0.12s)
• Immediate failure details - See what went wrong right away with code context
• Zero configuration - Just install and run pytest as usual
• Standard pytest syntax - Keep your existing def test_* functions

Installation

Using uv (recommended)

uv add --dev pytest-elegant

Using pip

pip install pytest-elegant

Usage

Once installed, pytest-elegant automatically transforms your pytest output. Just run:

pytest

That's it! No configuration needed.

Successful Example Output

Before (standard pytest):

After (with pytest-elegant):

Failure Example Output

Before (standard pytest):

After (with pytest-elegant):

After (with pytest-elegant with verbose mode):

Configuration

pytest-elegant works out of the box, but you can customize it via pytest.ini or pyproject.toml.

pyproject.toml

[tool.pytest.ini_options]
elegant_show_context = true      # Show code context in failure output (default: true)
elegant_group_by_file = true     # Group test results by file (default: true)
elegant_show_duration = true     # Show test duration for each test (default: true)

pytest.ini

[pytest]
elegant_show_context = true
elegant_group_by_file = true
elegant_show_duration = true

Disabling pytest-elegant

If you need to temporarily disable pytest-elegant and see standard pytest output:

pytest --no-elegant

Verbose Mode

pytest-elegant respects pytest's verbosity flags:

pytest -v      # More details (full file paths, more context)
pytest -vv     # Maximum details (full stack traces)

Advanced Features

Parametrized Tests

pytest-elegant beautifully formats parametrized tests, showing each parameter set:

  ✓ test_math[1-2-3] 0.01s
  ✓ test_math[4-5-9] 0.01s
  ⨯ test_math[10-20-50] 0.02s

Test Classes

Test classes are handled with proper nesting:

  PASS  tests/test_user.py
  ✓ TestUser::test_creation 0.02s
  ✓ TestUser::test_validation 0.01s

Skipped and Expected Failures

Different test outcomes have distinct symbols:

• ✓ - Passed (green)
• ⨯ - Failed (red)
• - - Skipped (yellow)
• x - Expected failure (yellow)
• X - Unexpected pass (yellow)

Unicode Support

If your terminal doesn't support ✓/✗ symbols, pytest-elegant automatically falls back to ASCII alternatives (PASS/FAIL).

Compatibility

• Python: 3.14+
• pytest: 7.0.0+
• Terminal: Any terminal with ANSI color support
• Parallel testing: Compatible with pytest-xdist

How It Works

pytest-elegant is a pytest plugin that:

1. Registers via the pytest11 entry point
2. Replaces pytest's default TerminalReporter with a custom one
3. Customizes output formatting hooks to provide elegant, minimal output
4. Uses pytest's built-in color support (no extra dependencies)

Development

Running Tests

# Run all tests
pytest

# Run specific test file
pytest tests/test_reporter.py

Type Checking

mypy src/pytest_elegant

Linting

ruff check src/pytest_elegant

Contributing

Contributions welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Add tests for new features
4. Ensure all tests pass
5. Submit a pull request

Author

Yann Rabiller (@einenlum) | blog | From PHP to Python

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Credits

Heavily inspired by Pest PHP by Nuno Maduro and contributors.