VSTest.Console.exe command-line options
VSTest.Console.exe is the command-line command that is used to run tests. You can specify several options in any order on the VSTest.Console.exe command line. These options are listed in the General Command Line Options table later in this topic.
vstest.console.exe interprets these options and values you specify in a case-insensitive manner.
The following table lists all the options for VSTest.Console.exe and short descriptions of them. You can see a similar summary by typing VSTest.Console/? at a command line.
Note
The MSTest adapter in Visual Studio 2012 also works in legacy mode (equivalent of running tests with mstest.exe) for compatibility. In legacy mode, it cannot take advantage of new VS11 features TestCaseFilter. Adapter can switch to legacy mode when .testsettings file is specified, forcelegacymode is set to true in .runsettings file or using attributes like HostType.
Note
In order to run automated tests on an ARM architecture based machine, you must use VSTest.Console.exe.
General Command Line Options
| [ test file names ] | Run tests from the specified files. Separate multiple test file names with spaces. Examples: mytestproject.dll, mytestproject.dll myothertestproject.exe |
| /Settings:[ file name ] | Run tests with additional settings such as data collectors. Example: /Settings:Local.RunSettings |
| /Tests:[ test name ] | Run tests with names that contain the provided values. To provide multiple values, separate them by commas. Example: /Tests:TestMethod1,testMethod2 Warning: The /Tests command line option cannot be used with the /TestCaseFilter command line option. |
| /Parallel | Specifies that the tests be executed in parallel. By default up to all available cores on the machine may be used. The number of cores to use can be configured by using a settings file. |
| /Enablecodecoverage | Enables data diagnostic adapter CodeCoverage in the test run. Default settings are used if not specified using settings file. |
| /InIsolation | Runs the tests in an isolated process. This makes vstest.console.exe process less likely to be stopped on an error in the tests, but tests might run slower. |
| /UseVsixExtensions | This makes vstest.console.exe process use or skip the VSIX extensions installed (if any) in the test run. Note: This option is deprecated. Starting from the next major release of Visual Studio this option may be removed. Please move to consuming extensions made available as a NuGet package. Example: /UseVsixExtensions:true |
| /TestAdapterPath:[ path ] | Forces the vstest.console.exe process to use custom test adapters from a specified path (if any) in the test run. Example: /TestAdapterPath:<pathToCustomAdapters> |
| /Platform:[ platform type ] | Target platform architecture to be used for test execution. Valid values are x86, x64 and ARM. |
| /Framework: [ framework version ] | Target .NET Framework version to be used for test execution. Valid values are Framework35, Framework40, Framework45, and FrameworkUap10. Note: If the target framework is specified as Framework35, the tests will be run in CLR 4.0 "compatibly mode". Example: /Framework:framework40 |
| /TestCaseFilter:[ expression ] | Run tests that match the given expression. <Expression> is of the format <property>=<value>[|<Expression>]. Example: /TestCaseFilter:"Priority=1" Example: /TestCaseFilter:"TestCategory=Nightly|FullyQualifiedName=Namespace.ClassName.MethodName" Warning: The /TestCaseFilter command line option cannot be used with the /Tests command line option. For information about creating and using expressions, see TestCase filter. |
| /? | Displays usage information. |
| /Logger:[ uri/friendlyname ] | Specify a logger for test results. Example: To log results into a Visual Studio Test Results File (TRX) use /Logger:trx. Example: To publish test results to Team Foundation Server, use TfsPublisher: /logger:TfsPublisher; Collection=<team project url>; BuildName=<build name>; TeamProject=<team project name>; [;Platform=<Defaults to “Any CPU”>] [;Flavor=<Defaults to “Debug”>] [;RunTitle=<title>] Note: The TfsPublisher logger requires Visual Studio 2012 with [Visual Studio 2012.1] or later. |
| /ListTests:[ file name ] | Lists discovered tests from the given test container. |
| /ListDiscoverers | Lists installed test discoverers. |
| /ListExecutors | Lists installed test executors. |
| /ListLoggers | Lists installed test loggers. |
| /ListSettingsProviders | Lists installed test settings providers. |
| /Blame | Tracks the tests as they are executing and, in the case of the test host process crashing, emits the tests names in their sequence of execution up to and including the specific test that was running at the time of the crash. This makes it easier to isolate the offending test and diagnose further. More information. |
| /Diag:[ file name ] | Writes diagnostic trace logs to the specified file. |
Using VSTest.Console.exe with test files
The usage for vstest.console.exe is:
Vstest.console.exe [TestFileNames] [Options]
The following shows an example of using VSTest.Console.exe from the command line:
Vstest.console.exe myTestProject.dll
The following shows an example of using VSTest.Console.exe from the command line using multiple test files. This is done by separating test file names with spaces:
Vstest.console.exe myTestFile.dll myOtherTestFile.dll
Example
The following example shows the use of some of the options for running Vstest.console.exe. In this case, it will run the tests in the myTestFile.dll file, while collecting data specified in the Local.RunSettings file and in an isolated process. Additionally, it will filter the test cases to run based in “Priority 1”, and log the results to a .trx file.
vstest.console.exe myTestFile.dll /Settings:Local.RunSettings /InIsolation /TestCaseFilter:"Priority=1" /Logger:trx
See Also
Running automated tests from the command line
Using VSTest.console from the command line