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bats-core/bats-core

Bash Automated Testing System
Source code at GitHub https://bats-core.readthedocs.io/
bats-core/bats-core.json
{
  "createdAt": "2017-09-19T21:28:20Z",
  "defaultBranch": "master",
  "description": "Bash Automated Testing System",
  "fullName": "bats-core/bats-core",
  "homepage": "https://bats-core.readthedocs.io/",
  "language": "Shell",
  "name": "bats-core",
  "pushedAt": "2025-11-25T07:48:23Z",
  "stargazersCount": 5662,
  "topics": [
    "bash",
    "bats",
    "junit",
    "shell",
    "tap",
    "testing",
    "testing-tools",
    "xunit"
  ],
  "updatedAt": "2025-11-26T01:32:40Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/bats-core/bats-core"
}

Latest release npm package License: MIT Continuous integration status Read the docs status

[Join the chat in bats-core/bats-core on gitter][gitter]

Bats-core: Bash Automated Testing System

Section titled “Bats-core: Bash Automated Testing System”

Bats is a TAP-compliant testing framework for Bash 3.2 or above. It provides a simple way to verify that the UNIX programs you write behave as expected.

A Bats test file is a Bash script with special syntax for defining test cases. Under the hood, each test case is just a function with a description.

#!/usr/bin/env bats


@test "addition using bc" {
  result="$(echo 2+2 | bc)"
  [ "$result" -eq 4 ]
}


@test "addition using dc" {
  result="$(echo 2 2+p | dc)"
  [ "$result" -eq 4 ]
}

Bats is most useful when testing software written in Bash, but you can use it to test any UNIX program.

Test cases consist of standard shell commands. Bats makes use of Bash’s errexit (set -e) option when running test cases. If every command in the test case exits with a 0 status code (success), the test passes. In this way, each line is an assertion of truth.

Table of contents

Section titled “Table of contents”

NOTE The documentation has moved to https://bats-core.readthedocs.io

  • [Testing]!(#testing)
  • [Support]!(#support)
  • [Contributing]!(#contributing)
  • [Contact]!(#contact)
  • [Version history]!(#version-history)
  • [Background]!(#background)
    • [What’s the plan and why?]!(#whats-the-plan-and-why)
    • [Why was this fork created?]!(#why-was-this-fork-created)
  • [Copyright]!(#copyright)

Testing

Section titled “Testing”
Terminal window
bin/bats --tap test

See also the [CI]!(./.github/workflows/tests.yml) settings for the current test environment and scripts.

Support

Section titled “Support”

The Bats source code repository is hosted on GitHub. There you can file bugs on the issue tracker or submit tested pull requests for review.

For real-world examples from open-source projects using Bats, see Projects Using Bats on the wiki.

To learn how to set up your editor for Bats syntax highlighting, see Syntax Highlighting on the wiki.

Contributing

Section titled “Contributing”

For now see the [docs]!(docs) folder for project guides, work with us on the wiki or look at the other communication channels.

Contact

Section titled “Contact”
  • You can find and chat with us on our [Gitter].

Version history

Section titled “Version history”

See docs/CHANGELOG.md.

Background

Section titled “Background”

Why was this fork created?

Section titled “Why was this fork created?”

There was an initial [call for maintainers][call-maintain] for the original Bats repository, but write access to it could not be obtained. With development activity stalled, this fork allowed ongoing maintenance and forward progress for Bats.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017: This was forked from [Bats][bats-orig] at commit [0360811][]. It was created via git clone --bare and git push --mirror.

As of Thursday, April 29, 2021: the original [Bats][bats-orig] has been archived by the owner and is now read-only.

This bats-core repo is now the community-maintained Bats project.

[call-maintain] !: https://github.com/sstephenson/bats/issues/150 [bats-orig] !: https://github.com/sstephenson/bats [0360811] !: https://github.com/sstephenson/bats/commit/03608115df2071fff4eaaff1605768c275e5f81f

Section titled “Copyright”

The Bats Logo was created by Vukory (Github) and sponsored by SethFalco. If you want to use our logo, have a look at our [guidelines]!(./docs/source/assets/README.md#Usage-Guide-for-Third-Parties).

© 2017-2024 bats-core organization

© 2011-2016 Sam Stephenson

Bats is released under an MIT-style license; see LICENSE.md for details.

See the parent project at GitHub or the [AUTHORS]!(AUTHORS) file for the current project maintainer team.

[gitter] !: https://gitter.im/bats-core/bats-core