What's it like to create a test runner from scratch? More than that: how do you test a test runner?
In this talk, I break down Poku, a test runner that makes testing easy for Node.js, Bun, Deno, and you.
You will learn about the power of subprocesses, isolation, and the advantages of working with concurrency. All of this using only native language features.
You will also understand how it is possible, in less than 200kB, to create a complete test runner and run the same test suite through all JavaScript runtimes for backend.
This talk has been presented at Node Congress 2026, check out the latest edition of this JavaScript Conference.





















