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tape-testing
tape
JavaScript2014–2021
tape-testing / tape

tape

tap-producing test harness for node and browsers

Web DevelopmentTesting & Quality
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
9Distinct people
9Mentions
2Explicit recommenders
5.8KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

tap-producing test harness for node and browsers

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use has been verified yet.

What people are saying

> The whole point is to allow language/harness agnostic tooling, but the only tool of note seems to be smoulder. Everything else seems to be trivial things like showing…

ChristianBundy used a recommendation phrase. 2 indexed comments match. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:03:16 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year9 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2014-02-27 21:09:41 UTC to 2021-12-17 16:07:35 UTC.

012342014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments20142015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 0 submissions, 4 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20172018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2021

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC404
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

What Hacker News says

9 sources
andrew_·Dec 17, 2021
I really enjoy Ava [1] or anything assert-tape-like [2]. "uvu" [3] is getting a lot of love lately, but it's very feature limited and much of it's touted advantages are at the detriment to feature set. [1] https://github.com/avajs/ava [2] https://github.com/substack/tape [3] https://github.com/lukeed/uvu Jest is great for front-end (or full stack integration) testing, but I feel it's specialized for that use-case and doesn't always play nice with backend/middle-tier testing needs.
In Chaijs.com just let their domain expire
johncoltrane·Dec 26, 2016
- I use Browserify(1) because it allows me to use CommonJS(2) modules and bundle my JavaScript painlessly. - Beyond the pretty standard debowerify(3) and hintify(4) transforms I use babelify(5) to help me sprinkle fancy ES6 features here and there. - Node-based watchers and the npm client itself are all broken in many ways and very bad Unix citizens so I've stopped using npm for anything beyond actual package management and I will almost certainly replace the npm client with Yarn(6) very soon. The venerable make(7) or the much much younger but very dependable modd(8) are infinitely better than all that Node-based crap on _every_ front. - I use tape(9) for tests (works like node-tap(10) with a little fewer dependencies) but I _love_ the look of ospec(11) even if it's not TAP(12)-compliant. - Some JS libraries I've used recently: route-pars
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er(13), pikaday(14), vidage(15), etc. - I don't use any Sass/SCSS-specific tool or library. - I use Vim(16) for editing text and either git itself (with with(17) when I remember I have it) or tig(18) for versioning source code. [1] http://browserify.org/ [2] http://wiki.commonjs.org/wiki/CommonJS [3] https://github.com/eugeneware/debowerify [4] https://github.com/ansis/hintify [5] https://github.com/babel/babelify [6] https://yarnpkg.com/ [7] https://www.gnu.org/software/make/ [8] https://github.com/cortesi/modd [9] https://github.com/substack/tape [10] https://github.com/tapjs/node-tap [11] https://github.com/lhorie/mithril.js/tree/rewrite/ospec [12] https://testanything.org/ [13] https://github.com/rcs/route-parser [14] https://github.com/dbushell/Pikaday [15] https://github.com/dvLden/Vidage [16] http://www.vim.org/ [17] https://github.com/mchav/with [18] https://jonas.github.io/tig/
In Ask HN: What languages and technologies/tools are you using right now?
l1ambda·Oct 11, 2016
In this case, I would argue it is not better. Many JS devs have moved onto simpler, greener pastures. https://github.com/substack/tape is what I prefer. Small little library. Its API has everything I need and nothing I don't. Those other test libraries listed are pretty much overkill. Similar with http://mithril.js.org/ over React, Angular and Ember. A single drop-in library with 13 functions in it's API. The library itself is a single, understandable source code file. Mithril is pretty much the exact opposite of Angular and Ember. A lot of front end devs are eschewing frameworks completely. With modern DOM and web APIs, you can do a lot with "just" vanillajs.
In Yarn – A new package manager for JavaScript
kinow·Jun 16, 2016
Jenkins TAP plugin maintainer here. Let me know if you have suggestions to improve the current TAP support in Jenkins, or any ideas. Not much of a Perl programmer, but I try to validate the plug-in against the output of some Perl lib tests, and have been wanting to spend some time adding another view to the plugin to mimic http://www.spurkis.org/TAP-Formatter-HTML/test-output.html Now with Node.JS the TAP community got some more users, and there are also tools being created (though not really popular I think) like http://www.taptinder.org/ and https://github.com/substack/tape.
In Test Anything Protocol specification (2006)
bpierre·Jul 27, 2014
Tools: Browserify [1]. You have all the npm packages available, and your modules are compatible with Node. This allows you to easily test your modules, or reuse some of your modules in the browser, the CLI and a webserver for example. Stylus [2] is great. Compared to Sass, I think it’s easier, more or equally powerful, and more future-proof. It’s basically a programming language on top of CSS, while Sass looks more like another language that produces CSS. It’s also written in JS, so you can easily write your own plugins (as npm modules). Browserify and Stylus are also quite nice if your code is component-oriented. This is how you import a component in Browserify: require('my-component') And in Stylus: @require 'my-component' For the build step, I always use Make because it’s everywhere except Windows, and I switch on gulp [3] if thi
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ngs get complicated or if I need Windows compatibility. I’m using tape [4] and testling [5] (locally) for tests. Simple. jspage [6] (I’m the author) is a simple tool I often use to transform some JS into a page. Useful for quick tests if you work in the CLI. Services: Cloudup [7] is nice for quick screenshot sharing. On OS X, I just use the built-in tool to make a screenshot, and an URL is immediately copied to the clipboard, I just have to paste it to someone. The delay between the moment when you take the screenshot and the moment when the other person loads the page is usually enough for the screenshot to be uploaded and displayed. scri.ch [8] (I wrote this tool) is a simple drawing tool I’m using to share visual ideas, especially in GitHub issues (just add .png to an URL to get the image). I also use it to make quick interface elements that I can integrate into a web mockup. [1] http://browserify.org/ [2] http://learnboost.github.io/stylus/ [3] http://gulpjs.com/ [4] https://github.com/substack/tape [5] https://ci.testling.com/ [6] https://github.com/bpierre/jspage [7] https://cloudup.com/ [8] http://scri.ch/
In Ask HN: What are the essential components of your front-end workflow?

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