# [`silk-test(1)`](/silk/docs/man/silk-test.1/) — Run Language-Level Tests > NOTE: This is the Markdown source for the eventual man 1 page for `silk test`. The roff-formatted manpage should be generated from this content. ## Name `silk-test` — discover and run language-level `test` declarations. ## Synopsis - `silk test [options] [ ...]` - `silk test [options] --package ` - `silk test [options]` (when `./silk.toml` exists, behaves as if `--package .` was provided) ## Description `silk test` discovers `test` declarations in the loaded module set and runs them, emitting TAP version 13 output. Top-level test bodies that contain `await` are run through async test wrappers and awaited by the generated runner. Test executables use the native host target when Silk has a host-backed executable backend for it, and otherwise fall back to `linux-x86_64`. Formal Silk target metadata in `silk test` reflects that selected execution target. When `--jobs` is greater than `1`, `silk test` runs test processes in parallel but keeps TAP output deterministic by buffering per-test output and printing results in the original selection order. When explicit input files are used (no `--package`), the `silk` CLI may load additional packages into the module set by resolving unquoted package imports (for example `import util;` or `import util from util;`) from the package search path (`SILK_PACKAGE_PATH`). ## Options - `--help`, `-h` — show command help and exit. - `--nostd`, `-nostd` — disable stdlib auto-loading for `import std::...;`. - `--std-root ` — override the stdlib root directory used to resolve `import std::...;`. - `--std-lib ` — select a stdlib archive path for linking hosted builds. - `--std ` — alias of `--std-root` when `` does not end in `.a`. - `--std .a` — alias of `--std-lib`. - `--z3-lib ` — override the Z3 dynamic library used for Formal Silk verification (also honors `SILK_Z3_LIB`). - `--debug`, `-g` — enable debug build mode (also enables extra Formal Silk debug output when verification fails). - `--feature `, `-F` — enable a build feature for `attr(feature="...")` queries and declaration gating. Repeatable. - Spec forms: `NAME` or `NAME=VALUE` (see [attributes](/silk/docs/language/attributes/)). - Feature names start with a letter or `_` and may contain letters, digits, `_`, and `-`. - For package builds, you may target a specific package with `PKG/NAME` or `PKG/NAME=VALUE` (for example `ui/tui` or `ui/tui=false`). - `--security-provider ` — select the security provider used for test-harness code generation and native auto-linking. CLI wins over `SILK_SECURITY_PROVIDER` and `[build] security_provider`; `auto` selects platform-backed APIs first on Apple targets and falls back to built-in archives for std APIs that do not yet have an Apple platform mapping. Other targets use built-in. - `-O <0-3>` — set optimization level (default: `-O2`; when `--debug` is set and `-O` is omitted, defaults to `-O0`). Test executables lower and emit only harness-reachable functions at every level; `-O1`+ additionally prunes unused extern symbols before code generation. - `--noheap` — reject heap allocation in the supported subset. - `--jobs `, `-j ` — run up to `` test processes in parallel. Default: `1`. `0` means “auto” (based on CPU count). Jobs are capped at `8`. - `--filter ` — run only tests whose test path contains `` (substring match). The test path is the nested test name stack joined with `/` (for example `suite/case`). - `--package `, `--pkg ` — load the module set from a `silk.toml` manifest instead of explicit input files. When ` ...` inputs are omitted and `--package` / `--pkg` is also omitted, but `./silk.toml` exists, `silk test` behaves as if `--package .` was provided. - when the root manifest enables a build module via `[build].build_module = true`, `silk test --package` runs that build module and uses the emitted manifest/module set for package tests, - for compatibility, package tests currently invoke the build module with the action string `build`, - manifest-native link metadata for the test harness (`[[target]].inputs`, `cflags`, `ldflags`, `needed`, and `runpath`) is taken from `[build].default_target` when it names a code target, otherwise the first declared code target; matching package and dependency `[[native]]` entries are merged as package-level native requirements; `kind = "man"` targets are ignored for target metadata. - raw manifest native sources (`.c`, `.h`, and supported `.m`) are compiled to temporary objects for the generated test harness; `.o`, `.a`, shared libraries, needed libraries, runpaths, and supported `ldflags` entries are linked as declared. - built-in provider native-input auto-linking for libsodium, mbedTLS, and libssh2, plus built-in SQLite auto-linking, follows the same supported-target rules as `silk build --package`. - if a package has no code targets, tests still run from the package source set but no manifest link metadata is applied. - `--` — end of options; treat following args as file paths (even if they begin with `-`). ## Examples ```sh # Run tests in an explicit module set. silk test src/main.slk src/util.slk # Run package tests from the current directory manifest (implicit --package .). silk test # Run package tests from the current directory manifest. silk test --package . # Run only tests whose name contains "url". silk test --package . --filter url ``` ## Environment - `PREFIX` — installation prefix used for the system package search root at `PREFIX/lib/silk` (searched last when it exists). Default: `/usr/local`. - `SILK_PACKAGE_PATH` — primary package search path for bare-specifier imports and pathless manifest dependencies (entries separated by `:` on POSIX, `;` on Windows). During package graph work, relative entries are resolved from the importing package root and then upward to the graph root. The compiler appends `PREFIX/lib/silk` as the last search path entry when it exists; dotted dependency keys such as `my.dep.b` map to slash directories such as `my/dep/b`. - `SILK_SECURITY_PROVIDER` — default security provider mode (`auto`, `platform`, or `builtin`) when the CLI flag is omitted. - `SILK_Z3_LIB` — path to a dynamic Z3 library used by the Formal Silk verifier. - `SILK_VERIFY_JOBS` — override the number of worker threads used for Formal Silk verification (default: auto; capped at 8). - `SILK_TEST_TIMEOUT_MS` — per-top-level-test process timeout in milliseconds (default: `30000`). - `SILK_TEST_JOBS` — override the number of test processes run in parallel (default: `1`; `0` means auto; capped at 8). Overridden by `--jobs`. - `SILK_TEST_MAX_OUTPUT_BYTES` — maximum bytes of stdout/stderr captured per test process for diagnostics (default: `1048576`). Output beyond this limit is truncated. ## Exit status - `0` when all tests pass. - non-zero when any test fails or the module set is invalid. ## See Also - [`silk(1)`](/silk/docs/man/silk.1/), [`silk-build(1)`](/silk/docs/man/silk-build.1/) - [cli silk](/silk/docs/compiler/cli-silk/) - [testing](/silk/docs/language/testing/)