run --quiet CLI option outputs test steps

[MikeMcC399]

Current behavior

The cypress run --quiet CLI option does not suppress all Cypress stdout output. Test spec steps, such as the following, are output:

  template spec
    ✓ passes (421ms)


  1 passing (2s)

Desired behavior

According to cypress run Options, there should be no stdout output if --quiet or -q are passed:

Option	Description
--quiet, -q	If passed, Cypress output will not be printed to stdout. Only output from the configured Mocha reporter will print.

In a project with no Mocha reporter configured, running Cypress in a bash shell, the output from:

npx cypress run --quiet

and

npx cypress run > /dev/null

should be identical.

Test code to reproduce

Scaffold a Cypress E2E project with the single default cypress/e2e/spec.cy.js

describe('template spec', () => {
  it('passes', () => {
    cy.visit('https://example.cypress.io')
  })
})

Execute:

npx cypress run --quiet

Cypress Version

13.16.0

Node version

v22.11.0 LTS

Operating System

Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS

Debug Logs

$ npx cypress run --quiet

DevTools listening on ws://127.0.0.1:39903/devtools/browser/01a687fe-8df0-41a4-b4b4-67217f4a1d1f


  template spec
    ✓ passes (421ms)


  1 passing (2s)

Other

• Related issue --quiet is not respected by video or cypress cloud output #27631

[ryanthemanuel]

@MikeMcC399, by default we use the spec mocha reporter so I think the test steps, etc. are accurate to what the doc says. The dev tools output would ideally not be present though i think?

[MikeMcC399]

@ryanthemanuel

Thanks for putting me right! The CLI --quiet option documentation doesn't make it clear about the built in https://mochajs.org/#spec configuration. That could be fixed by a documentation update which I will propose in the docs repo.

The dev tools output is on stderr, not stdout, so it shouldn't be suppressed by --quiet. See https://github.com/aslushnikov/getting-started-with-cdp/blob/master/README.md#protocol-fundamentals

DevTools listening on ws://127.0.0.1:39903/devtools/browser/01a687fe-8df0-41a4-b4b4-67217f4a1d1f

Closing as "works as designed".

[MikeMcC399]

• Documentation updated through PR Add built in reporter info to CLI --quiet option cypress-documentation#6016