User guide

Installation

Project-level

Add the plugin to project.clj so everyone building the project gets reports:

(defproject my-app "1.0.0"
            :plugins [[com.github.robinlahtinen/lein-junit-xml "0.1.0"]])

User-level

To have it available everywhere without touching a project, add it to the :user profile in ~/.lein/profiles.clj:

{:user {:plugins [[com.github.robinlahtinen/lein-junit-xml "0.1.0"]]}}

Requirements

Component	Version
Leiningen	2.10.0 or newer
Clojure	1.9 or newer, in the project under test
Java	8 or newer, in the project under test
Dependencies	none added to your project

Leiningen 2.13.0 itself needs Java 11, so a Java 8 build must stay on Leiningen 2.12.0 or older. That is a Leiningen constraint, not this plugin's, as plain lein test fails the same way. The Requirements section of the reference records how each floor was measured.

Quick start

$ lein junit-xml

Reports appear in target/junit-xml, one file per test namespace:

target/junit-xml/
├── TEST-my.app.core-test.xml
└── TEST-my.app.util-test.xml

The task takes the same arguments as lein test:

$ lein junit-xml :unit                     # a test selector
$ lein junit-xml my.app.core-test          # a single namespace
$ lein junit-xml test/my/app/core_test.clj

The exit code is the same too: zero when the suite passes, one when it does not.

Core concepts

One file per namespace

Each test namespace becomes one <testsuite> in one TEST-<namespace>.xml file. This bounds memory to a single namespace at a time and means a run that dies partway through keeps the results it already produced.

There is no need to consolidate the files. Jenkins globs **/TEST-*.xml and merges same-named suites itself, and so do the other major consumers.

How results map

clojure.test	Report
A passing deftest	<testcase> with no children
A failed is assertion	a <failure> inside the case
An uncaught exception	an <error> inside the case, with the exception class and stack trace
A test excluded by a selector	<skipped>
A throwing :once fixture	an initializationError case carrying the exception

A deftest with several failing assertions is one failing case with several <failure> children, which is how JUnit counts and how CI dashboards expect to read it.

Making lein test write reports

Alias the built-in task:

:aliases {"test" ["junit-xml"]}

Now lein test behaves exactly as before and also writes reports. Nothing else changes: selectors, exit codes and lein retest all keep working.

Configuration

One option:

:junit-xml {:output-dir "target/junit-xml"}

Relative paths resolve against the project root, not your shell's working directory. Unknown keys are rejected with a clear error rather than silently ignored, so a typo fails immediately.

Overriding the directory for one run

Use Leiningen's built-in update-in task, as no extra configuration surface is needed:

$ lein update-in :junit-xml assoc :output-dir '"build/reports"' -- junit-xml

CI recipes

Jenkins

sh 'lein junit-xml'
junit testResults: 'target/junit-xml/TEST-*.xml'

Two settings are worth knowing:

• Stdio retention. By default, Jenkins keeps only the first and last 500 characters of <system-out>. Raise it on the step if you need whole logs.
• Properties. Jenkins discards <properties> unless the job sets keepProperties: true.

Make sure the step still runs when tests fail, or a failing build will archive nothing:

sh script: 'lein junit-xml', returnStatus: true
junit testResults: 'target/junit-xml/TEST-*.xml'

GitHub Actions

-   name: Test
    run: lein junit-xml
-   name: Publish results
    uses: mikepenz/action-junit-report@v6
    if: always()
    with:
        report_paths: target/junit-xml/TEST-*.xml

GitLab CI

test:
    script: lein junit-xml
    artifacts:
        when: always
        reports:
            junit: target/junit-xml/TEST-*.xml

Troubleshooting

No files were written at all

Almost always a compile error in a test namespace. Leiningen requires every test namespace before running any test, so the run aborts before a single result exists. The actual error is in the console output above.

My log output is missing from <system-out>

Output written straight to System/out by tools such as SLF4J, Logback, java.util.logging, and most Java libraries bypasses Clojure's *out* and is not captured. Test code using println is captured. See "Why System/out is not captured" in the reference for why this is not worked around.

Output from threads other than the test thread is not captured either.

Everything shows up under "(root)" in Jenkins

Jenkins builds its Package → Class → Test tree by splitting classname at the last dot. A single-segment test namespace has no dot, so it lands under (root). Use a multi-segment namespace such as my.app.core-test.

A namespace shows zero tests, or is missing from Jenkins

A namespace with no tests gets a file with tests="0", and Jenkins discards suites with no cases. That is Jenkins' behaviour, not a lost report — the file is on disk.

Warnings prefixed com.github.robinlahtinen/lein-junit-xml:

A problem inside the plugin itself. These are reported and swallowed deliberately: a reporting bug must never change whether your tests pass. Please open an issue with the message.