tiniest is a collection of minimal, portable testing libraries for Luau, built on a few principles:

• Simple, idiomatic Luau throughout.
• Zero external dependencies.
• Small core, extend with plugins.
• Runtime independence.
• No opinions about project structure.

tiniest comes with pre-configured bundles for popular runtimes like Roblox and Lune, or pick and mix your own modules and plugins!

Features

• test() and describe() callbacks
• Clean, correctly-cropped stack traces
• Declarative expect() API with line numbers and code visualisation
• Pretty-formatted summaries of reports with emoji, Unicode, and colour
• Benchmark how long tests run for
• Extensible, lightweight plugin system
• Snapshot testing for all quotable data types

Planned

• Test discovery for Lune

Installation

No installation needed!

tiniest is distributed as a set of portable Luau files that sit next to each other. Drop them into your lib folder, keep the ones you need, and start using tiniest right away :)

pesde

tiniest can also be installed from the pesde index:

pesde add storybakery/tiniest

For maintainers, the publish flow is:

pesde auth login

# 1) Lune target
# [target]
# environment = "lune"
# lib = "src/tiniest_for_lune.luau"
pesde publish --dry-run
pesde publish

# 2) Luau target (same name + same version)
# [target]
# environment = "luau"
# lib = "src/tiniest.luau"
pesde publish --dry-run
pesde publish

# 3) Roblox target (same name + same version)
# [target]
# environment = "roblox"
# lib = "src/tiniest_for_roblox.luau"
# build_files = ["src"]
pesde publish --dry-run
pesde publish

As of February 25, 2026, pesde x jiwonz/multitarget currently fails in this setup with could not resolve child component "GreenTea", so this repository uses the sequential target publish flow above instead.

Usage

🎨 The printed reports come with colour - try it in your terminal!

Here's an example file written with tiniest_for_lune:

--!strict

local tiniest = require("@tiniest_for_lune").configure({
	snapshot_path = "./test/__snapshots__",
	save_snapshots = true
}) 

local function my_test_suite()
	local describe = tiniest.describe
	local test = tiniest.test
	local expect = tiniest.expect
	local snapshot = tiniest.snapshot

	describe("some cool features", function()
		test("it works", function()
			expect(2 + 2).is(4)
		end)

		test("snapshots", function()
			snapshot({
				hello = "world",
				foo = true,
				bar = 2
			})
		end)
	end)
end

local tests = tiniest.collect_tests(my_test_suite)
tiniest.run_tests(tests, {})

The above example generates a report like this and prints it to stdout:

══════════════════════════════ Status of 2 test(s) ═════════════════════════════

✅ some cool features ▸ it works - 74.9µs
✅ some cool features ▸ snapshots - 137.71ms

══════════════════════════════ 2 passed, 0 failed ══════════════════════════════

Time to run: 217.9ms

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

Failures look like this:

═════════════════════════════ Errors from 2 test(s) ════════════════════════════

❌ some cool features ▸ it works
Expectation not met
   │ 
16 │ expect(4).is(5)
   │ 
[string "test/test_main"]:16

❌ some cool features ▸ snapshots
Snapshot does not match
   │ 
78 │ snapshot({
   │   ["bar"] = 2;
   │   ["foo"] = true;
   │   ["hello"] = "world";
   │ })
   │ 
   │ -- snapshot on disk:
   │ snapshot({
   │   ["bar"] = 5;
   │   ["foo"] = false;
   │   ["hello"] = "earth";
   │ })
   │ 
[string "test/test_main"]:20

══════════════════════════════ Status of 2 test(s) ═════════════════════════════

❌ some cool features ▸ it works - 111.6ms
❌ some cool features ▸ snapshots - 174.9ms

══════════════════════════════ 0 passed, 2 failed ══════════════════════════════

Time to run: 292.81ms

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

License

Licensed the same way as all of my open source projects: BSD 3-Clause + Security Disclaimer.

As with all other projects, you accept responsibility for choosing and using this project.

See LICENSE or the license summary for details.