config: testing in a docker container

[balpert89]

Did you check docs and existing issues?

• I have read the documentation.
• I have searched the existing configuration related discussions.
• I have updated to the latest version of Neotest.
• I have updated to the latest version of neotest-golang.
• I have checked the Neotest log for errors (see README for instructions on enabling it).

Neovim version (nvim -v)

0.10 or 0.11-nightly

Operating system/version

MacOS 15.2

Output from :checkhealth neotest-golang

neotest-golang: require("neotest-golang.health").check()

Requirements ~
- OK Binary 'go' found on PATH: /usr/local/go/bin/go
- OK Found go.mod file for /Users/xxx/go/src/.../ipaddress_types_test.go in /Users/xxx/go/src/.../go.mod
- OK Treesitter parser for go is installed
- OK neotest is available
- OK nvim-treesitter is available
- OK nio is available
- OK plenary is available

DAP (optional) ~
- OK Binary 'dlv' found on PATH: /Users/xxx/.local/share/nvim/mason/bin/dlv
- OK dap is available
- OK dapui is available
- OK dap-go is available

Gotestsum (optional) ~
- OK Binary 'gotestsum' not found on PATH

Your Neotest and neotest-golang Lua setup

--

Describe the problem

Hi folks,

I have an interesting problem where I need help :-) on my company macbook I want to test some project, but go test fails because this project has some dependencies that are not available on a macbook:

go test ./...
github.com/ironcore-dev/metalbond
[email protected].../netlink.go:65:52: undefined: netlink.FAMILY_ALL
[email protected].../netlink.go:191:19: undefined: netlink.IP6tnlEncap

I had to fall back to jetbrains IDEA to commence the tests because there it is fairly easy to setup testing in a docker container. I am using this Dockerfile to setup the container image:

FROM golang:1.23-bullseye
ARG DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
ARG GOARCH=''
RUN go install sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/tools/setup-envtest@latest
RUN setup-envtest use
RUN ln -sf /root/.local/share/kubebuilder-envtest/k8s/1.31.0-linux-arm64/etcd /usr/local/bin/etcd
RUN ln -sf /root/.local/share/kubebuilder-envtest/k8s/1.31.0-linux-arm64/kube-apiserver /usr/local/bin/kube-apiserver
RUN ln -sf /root/.local/share/kubebuilder-envtest/k8s/1.31.0-linux-arm64/kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
WORKDIR /app

IDEA creates the two following relevant files for the tests:

• .run/run.xml
• .idea/remote-targets.xml

remote-targets.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project version="4">
  <component name="RemoteTargetsManager">
    <targets>
      <target name="sha256:0fba2c6e815a" type="docker" uuid="40fa7d9a-9dd6-4b47-97fb-3856ed9ee622">
        <config>
          <option name="targetPlatform">
            <TargetPlatform />
          </option>
          <option name="buildImageConfig">
            <BuildImageConfig>
              <option name="buildArgs" value="--platform=linux/amd64" />
              <option name="builtImageTag" value="sha256:0fba2c6e815a9b2ecb461adba85f30389be44d24036b85b8aebdab617bbffe78" />
              <option name="dockerFile" value="mac.Dockerfile" />
            </BuildImageConfig>
          </option>
        </config>
        <ContributedStateBase type="GoLanguageRuntime">
          <config>
            <option name="compiledExecutablesVolume">
              <VolumeState>
                <option name="targetSpecificBits">
                  <map>
                    <entry key="mountAsVolume" value="false" />
                  </map>
                </option>
              </VolumeState>
            </option>
            <option name="goPath" value="/go" />
            <option name="goRoot" value="/usr/local/go/bin/go" />
            <option name="goVersion" value="go1.22.8 linux/arm64" />
            <option name="projectSourcesVolume">
              <VolumeState>
                <option name="targetSpecificBits">
                  <map>
                    <entry key="mountAsVolume" value="false" />
                  </map>
                </option>
              </VolumeState>
            </option>
          </config>
        </ContributedStateBase>
      </target>
    </targets>
  </component>
</project>

.run/run.xml

<component name="ProjectRunConfigurationManager">
  <configuration default="false" name="Podman: suite_test.go" type="GoTestRunConfiguration" factoryName="Go Test">
    <module name="my-controller" />
    <target name="sha256:0fba2c6e815a" />
    <working_directory value="$PROJECT_DIR$/internal/controller" />
    <root_directory value="$PROJECT_DIR$" />
    <kind value="FILE" />
    <package value="my-controller/internal/controller" />
    <directory value="$PROJECT_DIR$" />
    <filePath value="$PROJECT_DIR$/internal/controller/suite_test.go" />
    <framework value="gotest" />
    <method v="2" />
  </configuration>
</component>

This effectively starts a docker container and the IDEA debugger somehow attaches to that.

Is it somehow possible to build this with neotest-golang? Any recommendations / examples for this? Help is much appreciated!

[fredrikaverpil]

Hi!

The neotest-golang adapter does not support this (today).

Right off the bat, I am guessing that the following is needed to support it;

• Ability to override the go command and e.g. replace it with docker exec your_container_name go.
• Ability to override the path to the project root inside the container.
• Ability to override the disk location in which Neotest will read/write test output to/from.

But there might be better ways that I'm not aware of. Have you looked at how other Neotest adapters are solving this problem?

Quick Google search for inspiration:

• https://github.com/olimorris/neotest-rspec#running-tests-in-a-docker-container
• https://github.com/praem90/neotest-docker-phpunit.nvim#configuration

This discussion talks mostly about how difficult it would be to support this in Neotest itself, but is still interesting to include when thinking about how this could be solved for neotest-golang.

[balpert89]

Hi Fredrik,

thanks for looking into the topic!

From the discussion in the neotest repository my takeaway is that the solution involves the actual adapter, not necessarily neotest itself.

In neotest-golang there already is the possibilty to overwrite the test runner with gotestsum https://github.com/fredrikaverpil/neotest-golang?tab=readme-ov-file#using-gotestsum-as-test-runner - would it be possible to hook a custom script (similar to nvim-neotest/neotest#89 (comment)) as the runner or is there some extra validation prohibiting this?

[fredrikaverpil]

I've successfully gotten the neotest-golang repo tests running in a container using the most basic setup:

1. Load neotest-golang from this branch: docker:

   {
     "fredrikaverpil/neotest-golang",
     branch = "docker",
   },

2. Clone down this repo onto local disk.
3. Add a .lazy.lua file in the project root, which will provide per-project Neotest settings (and will override any other neotest/adapter settings):

   return {
     {
       "nvim-neotest/neotest",
       lazy = true,
       ft = { "go" },
       dependencies = {
         {
           "fredrikaverpil/neotest-golang",
           branch = "docker",
           dependencies = {
             "uga-rosa/utf8.nvim",
           },
         },
       },
   
       opts = {
         -- Neotest log
         -- log_level = vim.log.levels.DEBUG,
         adapters = {
           require("neotest-golang")({
             -- Neotest-golang log
             -- log_level = vim.log.levels.TRACE,
   
             cmd_prefix = {
               "docker",
               "run",
               "--rm",
               "-v",
               vim.fn.getcwd() .. ":/" .. vim.fn.getcwd(),
               "-w",
               vim.fn.getcwd() .. "/tests/go",
               "golang:1.23-bullseye",
             },
   
             go_test_args = {
               "-v",
               "-count=1",
               "-race",
               "-coverprofile=" .. vim.fn.getcwd() .. "/coverage.out",
               -- "-p=1",
               "-parallel=1",
             },
   
             runner = "go",
   
             -- NOTE: there is a test in the test suite which requires sanitization.
             sanitize_output = true,
           }),
         },
       },
     },
   }

4. Launch Neovim from the project root.
5. Run tests via e.g. the Neotest summary panel or "nearest test".

I'm debug-printing the command that gets executed, so that you can play around and make sure you get it right. You can also hit a in the Summary panel right after executing a test, so to attach to the test execution and see the streaming output.

In this case, I'm restarting/stopping the container each time I run a test which adds a lot of warmup/cooldown time, especially as all go dependencies are re-downloaded each time. You can instead start up the container and leave it running and modify the docker command above, so it instead executes go test inside. Then you'd need something like this:

# start container and leave it idle
docker run -d --name golang-test -v $(pwd):$(pwd) -w $(pwd)/tests/go golang:1.23-bullseye tail -f /dev/null

Then set the cmd_prefix like this instead:

cmd_prefix = {
  "docker",
  "exec",
  "golang-test",
},

All in all, this works on my end in this project. But this project is very simple. It would be interesting to hear what your observations are like in a bigger project.

Also, to make this fully compatible with other features, like the gotestsum runner, I also need to make it possible to define a custom location for file written to disk inside the container, which can also be accessed from the local Neovim instance. But before doing that, I'd like to hear what you think about all this.

[fredrikaverpil]

I just now pushed a few commits which should enable use of the gotestsum runner too.

See the description in this draft PR: #259

[balpert89]

Sadly I was occupied with work. This looks very promising, I will try it over the weekend!

[fredrikaverpil]

@balpert89 have you tried using a dev-container approach?
https://github.com/esensar/nvim-dev-container

I haven't tried this myself, but I guess this means running Neovim from inside the container. Meaning, you'd have to make sure to install Neovim there first + any linters, LSPs, formatters etc.
If you are using lazy.nvim + Mason, I think the tooling will do most of the heavy-lifting for you here.

Here's a pretty good walkthrough: https://cadu.dev/running-neovim-on-devcontainers/

[balpert89]

No, I haven't looked into dev containers and reads like a lot of overhead. I am favoring the other suggestion with the docker command in the golang-neotest configuration for now.