vitest-dev / vitest-dev/vitest

Unhelpful startup error when nothing is passed to `--reporter` flag

Open Beginner friendly
#11,019 5 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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pending triage
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Describe the bug

Running Vitest with --reporter but without a reporter name

vitest --reporter

results in an internal-looking error:

Error: Failed to load custom Reporter from true
...
[cause]: Error: Failed to convert JavaScript value `Boolean true` into rust type `String`
...

An error message like this would be more helpful:

Error: The --reporter option requires a reporter name.
Available examples: verbose, dot, json
Reproduction

https://stackblitz.com/edit/vitest-dev-vitest-nvlgtsbv?file=README.md&file=md!README.md&initialPath=__vitest__/

System Info
System:
    OS: Linux 5.0 undefined
    CPU: (8) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9880H CPU @ 2.30GHz
    Memory: 0 Bytes / 0 Bytes
    Shell: 1.0 - /bin/jsh
  Binaries:
    Node: 22.22.3 - /usr/local/bin/node
    Yarn: 1.22.19 - /usr/local/bin/yarn
    npm: 10.8.2 - /usr/local/bin/npm
    pnpm: 8.15.6 - /usr/local/bin/pnpm
  npmPackages:
    @vitest/ui: latest => 4.1.11 
    vite: latest => 8.2.1 
    vitest: latest => 4.1.11
Used Package Manager

npm

Validations

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by running vitest --reporter and tracing how the CLI parses the --reporter option before it attempts to load a custom reporter. Locate the related option handling and reporter tests, then verify that the command reports a clear missing-name error while valid reporter names continue to work.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
cli
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
72/100

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