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KT Testing Suite Core brings familiar Jest/Mocha-style test ergonomics to the world of Adobe ExtendScript. If you’ve ever tried to validate logic running inside After Effects, Premiere Pro, or Illustrator — where JavaScript is executed by the Adobe host application rather than Node.js — you know how difficult it is to rely on modern testing tooling. KT Testing Suite Core solves that by providing a self-contained describe/it/expect API that compiles down to plain ExtendScript and runs entirely inside the Adobe host.

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What Problem Does It Solve?

Adobe CC extensions backed by ExtendScript run inside a sandboxed JavaScript engine (the ExtendScript runtime) that predates ES5 and has no access to Node.js, browser APIs, or npm-native test runners like Jest or Vitest. You cannot simply npm test your way to green. KT Testing Suite Core bridges that gap: you write tests in TypeScript using an API you already know, build them to a single ExtendScript file with kt-extendscript-builder, and execute them directly inside the target Adobe application using the ExtendScript Debugger VS Code extension.

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The ExtendScript / Adobe Context

ExtendScript is Adobe’s proprietary scripting layer, based on JavaScript 1.5, that gives scripts direct access to the host application’s DOM — compositions in After Effects, sequences in Premiere Pro, documents in Illustrator, and so on. Code runs inside the host process, meaning your tests can create real CompItem objects, add layers, query properties, and assert against live application state. Because the runtime is not Node.js, all test infrastructure must ship as part of the compiled bundle. KT Testing Suite Core is designed with exactly this constraint in mind: it has zero runtime dependencies beyond what ExtendScript provides, and it bundles a JSON polyfill (json2.js) for older host versions that lack native JSON support.

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Integration with the KT Ecosystem

KT Testing Suite Core is one piece of a larger toolchain for building Adobe extensions in TypeScript:
  • kt-extendscript-builder — The kt-build CLI that compiles TypeScript sources (including test files) into a single .jsx/.js ExtendScript bundle. The build-tests and build-tests-debug scripts in your project’s kt.config.json point directly at this tool.
  • Bolt CEP — A full-stack Adobe CEP extension scaffold. KT Testing Suite Core’s build pipeline is based on Bolt CEP’s bundling infrastructure, making it a natural fit for projects that use Bolt.
  • Types for Adobe — TypeScript type definitions for Adobe application APIs (After Effects, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, etc.). These types let you write type-safe test code against Adobe-specific classes like CompItem, AVLayer, or FootageSource.
  • KT Testing Suite AE — An optional extension layer built on top of this core that provides After Effects-specific matchers.

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Key Features

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describe / it / expect

The familiar nested suite and test structure you already know from Jest and Mocha. Tests are registered synchronously, then executed when you call runTests(). 
import { describe, it, expect, runTests } from "kt-testing-suite-core";

describe("Layer Validation", () => {
  it("should confirm a composition was created", () => {
    const comp = app.project.items.addComp("Test Comp", 1920, 1080, 1, 10, 30);
    expect(comp).toBeInstanceOf(CompItem);
    comp.remove();
  });
});

runTests();

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Rich Matcher Library

Over 30 built-in matchers organized into logical groups — equality (toBe, toEqual), type checking (toBeString, toBeNumber, toBeArray), truthiness (toBeTruthy, toBeFalsy), size and content (toHaveLength, toContain, toInclude, toHaveProperty), numeric comparisons (toBeGreaterThan, toBeCloseTo), error handling (toThrow), and ExtendScript-specific I/O matchers (toBeFile, toBeFolder, fileExists). Every matcher supports negation via .not().

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Lifecycle Hooks

beforeEach, afterEach, beforeAll, and afterAll hooks run at the right moments in the test lifecycle, supporting nested scopes just as they do in Jest.

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Reporters

Results are surfaced through a pluggable reporter interface. The default ConsoleReporter writes human-readable output to the ExtendScript console. The JSONReporter emits structured JSON wrapped in JSON_OUTPUT_START / JSON_OUTPUT_END markers, which is useful for IDE integrations and CI pipelines. You can implement the TestReporter interface to build your own.

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Extensibility

extendMatchers lets you register custom matcher objects and get them back as a fully-typed expect function. Adobe type helpers (asAdobeType, isAdobeType) eliminate repetitive as unknown as T casts when writing matchers that touch Adobe application objects.

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Environment Note

KT Testing Suite Core executes inside an Adobe host application — not in Node.js and not in a browser. Tests must be compiled to a single ExtendScript bundle (via kt-build) and executed using the ExtendScript Debugger VS Code extension or another ExtendScript runner that targets the correct host application. You cannot run these tests with jest, vitest, or mocha directly from the command line.

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Explore the Documentation

Quickstart

Install the package, write your first test, build it, and run it inside an Adobe app in under five minutes.

Matchers Overview

Browse the full set of built-in matchers — equality, type, truthiness, size, numeric, I/O, and more.

Hooks

Use beforeEach, afterEach, beforeAll, and afterAll to manage setup and teardown around your tests.

Custom Matchers

Extend expect with your own matchers using extendMatchers, and safely access Adobe object types with the included type helpers.

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