Properties

The IntelliJ plugin runs tests via Gradle, which means properties defined in gradle.properties or Gradle build files are automatically available.

Additionally, the Kotest framework will always look for key-value pairs inside a kotest.properties file located on the classpath (eg, in src/main/resources).

Any key value pairs located in this file will be set as a system property before any tests execute.

tip

The kotest.properties file provides a portable way to configure Kotest consistently across the command line, Gradle, and the IntelliJ plugin.

For example, after adding this file to your classpath as kotest.properties:

foo=bar

The following test would pass:

class FooTest : DescribeSpec() {
  init {
    describe("after adding kotest.properties") {
      it("foo should be set") {
        System.getProperty("foo") shouldBe "bar"
      }
    }
  }
}

Common use case

It is common to disable the classpath scanning capabilities of Kotest to save some startup time, if those features are not used. Add the following lines to the kotest.properties file:

kotest.framework.classpath.scanning.config.disable=true
kotest.framework.classpath.scanning.autoscan.disable=true

Specifying the properties filename

If you don't wish to name the file kotest.properties, or perhaps you want to support different files based on an environment, then you can use the system property kotest.properties.filename to set the properties filename.

For example, you could launch tests with kotest.properties.filename=cluster.prd.properties then the key-value file named cluster.prd.properties would be loaded before any tests are executed.