If we have a Gradle task of type Test we can use a filter on the command line when we invoke the task. We define a filter using the --tests option. If for example we want to run all tests from a single package we must define the package name as value for the --tests option. It is good to define the filter between quotes, so it is interpreted as is, without any shell interference.

If we configure the test task to output the test class name we can see that which tests are executed. In the following snippet we reconfigure the test task:

...
test {
    beforeTest { descriptor ->
       logger.lifecycle("Running test: $descriptor.className")
    }
}
...

Suppose we have a project and we execute all tests:

$ gradle test
...
:test
Running test: mrhaki.gradle.model.CourseSpec
Running test: mrhaki.gradle.model.TeacherSpec
Running test: mrhaki.gradle.service.CourseServiceSpec
...
$

To only run the tests in the mrhaki.gradle.model package we use the following command:

$ gradle test --tests "mrhaki.gradle.model.*"
...
:test
Running test: mrhaki.gradle.model.CourseSpec
Running test: mrhaki.gradle.model.TeacherSpec
...
$

We can even filter on a single test to be executed:

$ gradle test --tests "mrhaki.gradle.model.CourseSpec"
...
:test
Running test: mrhaki.gradle.model.CourseSpec
...
$

If we only want to run a single method of a test we can specify the method name as a filter:

$ gradle test --tests "test --tests "mrhaki.gradle.model.CourseSpec.create new Course as immutable""
...
:test
Running test: mrhaki.gradle.model.CourseSpec
...
$

Written with Gradle 2.13.

Original blog post