Change default timeout for mocha

Question

If we have a unit test file my-spec.js and running with mocha:

mocha my-spec.js

The default timeout will be 2000 ms. It can be overwritten for partial test with a command line parameter:

mocha my-spec.js --timeout 5000

Is it possible to change the default timeout globally for all tests? i.e. the default timeout value will be different from 2000 ms when you call:

mocha my-spec.js

Answer 1

Just adding to the correct answer you can set the timeout with the arrow function like this:

it('Some test', () => {

}).timeout(5000)

Answer 2

Adding this for completeness. If you (like me) use a script in your package.json file, just add the --timeout option to mocha:

"scripts": {
  "test": "mocha 'test/**/*.js' --timeout 10000",
  "test-debug": "mocha --debug 'test/**/*.js' --timeout 10000"
},

Then you can run npm run test to run your test suite with the timeout set to 10,000 milliseconds.

Answer 3

In current versions of Mocha, the timeout can be changed globally like this:

mocha.timeout(5000);

Just add the line above anywhere in your test suite, preferably at the top of your spec or in a separate test helper.

---

In older versions, and only in a browser, you could change the global configuration using mocha.setup.

mocha.setup({ timeout: 5000 });

---

The documentation does not cover the global timeout setting, but offers a few examples on how to change the timeout in other common scenarios.