pytest-error-for-skips

What it is and what it does

pytest-error-for-skips is a pytest plugin that changes how your test suite treats skipped tests. Instead of reporting them as skipped (the normal pytest behavior), it converts them into test failures. This is useful in CI environments where you want to ensure that all tests actually run rather than being silently skipped due to missing dependencies or conditional skip decorators.

The plugin works by adding a command-line flag `--error-for-skips` to pytest. When enabled, any test marked as skipped will be reported as a failure instead, forcing you to either fix the skip condition or explicitly acknowledge it. It depends only on pytest and has low installation friction, but it has been abandoned since late 2019 and may not be compatible with modern pytest or Python versions.

Use it for:

• Enforce that CI pipelines run all tests rather than silently skipping tests due to missing optional dependencies.
• Catch tests that are skipped because of unmet environment conditions and ensure they are addressed.
• Verify test suite completeness by failing the build when tests are conditionally skipped.
• Detect tests that were marked as skip during development but never re-enabled.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

A pytest plugin that converts skipped tests into test failures, ensuring your CI pipeline catches tests that are being skipped rather than actually run.

No. While the plugin solves a real problem and has permissive licensing, it is abandoned and has not been maintained since 2019. Compatibility with modern pytest and Python versions is uncertain. For new projects, consider whether pytest's native skip handling or a more actively maintained alternative better serves your CI needs, or evaluate whether the risk of using an unmaintained plugin is acceptable for your use case.

Install

pytest-error-for-skips on PyPI

pip install pytest-error-for-skips

uv add pytest-error-for-skips

poetry add pytest-error-for-skips

Installing pytest-error-for-skips

Before you install

Low install friction with a single runtime dependency on pytest. However, the package is abandoned—last release was 2019-12-19 and no commits since then. It may not work reliably with recent pytest versions or Python releases beyond those it was tested against.

License in practice

Distributed under the MIT license, which is permissive and imposes no restrictions on use, modification, or distribution in your own projects.

Quickstart

pip install pytest-error-for-skips

pytest --error-for-skips

Requires pytest to be installed; compatibility with pytest versions released after 2019 is uncertain given the package's abandoned status.

Verify before relying

• Whether the plugin works with pytest versions released after 2019-12-19 without modification.
• Whether it is compatible with Python 3.9+ despite classifiers only listing up to 3.8.
• Whether any pytest API changes have broken the plugin's core functionality.

Package facts

Evidence: pytest_error_for_skips-2.0.2-py3-none-any.whl

Tags

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