Specification

Managing the TAP specification.

For general use of TAP please visit the website.

Guidelines For TAP Specification Changes

TAP is a venerable and widely used format for reporting test results in a variety of languages and platforms.

Interoperability between these platforms is a high priority. Thus:

• No changes will be accepted UNLESS they are adopted by multiple implementations representing a major portion of the TAP userbase.
• No changes will be blocked IF they are adopted by multiple implementations representing a major portion of the TAP userbase.
• Specification should remove as much ambiguity as possible, while maintaining backwards compatibility with existing TAP providers and consumers to the greatest degree possible.

The goal of this specification is to describe the landscape accurately, and provide guidance for new TAP implementations. It is a dictionary.

A good idea is not enough of a reason to change the specification! But it can be a great place to start.

If you have a feature that you'd like to see, you may find some people here who can provide guidance. But the place to champion for features is in the implementations themselves. When it is in wide enough usage, we will write it down here.