Failing fast

Karva runs the whole suite by default. Use --fail-fast or --max-fail to stop after failures.

Stopping after the first failure

--fail-fast stops scheduling new tests once any test fails:

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uv run karva test --fail-fast

This is equivalent to --max-fail=1.

Stopping after N failures

--max-fail=N is the general form: stop scheduling new tests once N have failed.

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uv run karva test --max-fail=3

Tests already running may finish, so parallel runs can report more than N failures.

Configuration

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[tool.karva.profile.default.test]
max-fail = 3

fail-fast = true is accepted as an alias for max-fail = 1. When both are set, max-fail wins.

Forcing the suite to run

--no-fail-fast clears any fail-fast or max-fail value set in configuration and runs the entire suite:

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uv run karva test --no-fail-fast

If both flags are passed, --max-fail takes precedence.