Adding Shields.io Badges, AVA Tests, nyc Coverage, Codecov Reporting, and Travis CI to a Node.js Project

Many open‑source repositories on GitHub display small badges, which can be generated automatically from shields.io . By selecting a badge type (e.g., npm version) and copying the generated Markdown, you can paste it into a README file.

AVA testing

AVA is a modern JavaScript test runner that supports ES6+ out of the box. Install it with npm init ava and write test files such as test.js :

import test from 'ava';
import Memcached from '../lib/memcached';

test.before(t => {
    const memcached = new Memcached(['127.0.0.1:11211'], {
        pool: { max: 2, min: 0 },
        timeout: 5000
    });
    t.context.memcached = memcached;
});

test('memcached get/set', async t => {
    t.plan(3);
    const key = 'testkey';
    const testdata = 'testest\r\n\\stese';
    const r = await t.context.memcached.set(key, testdata);
    t.is(r, 'STORED');

    const g = await t.context.memcached.get(key, testdata);
    t.is(g, testdata);

    const dr = await t.context.memcached.del(key);
    t.is(dr, 'DELETED');
});

test('unit test title', t => {
    t.pass();
});

AVA supports hooks such as test.before and the t.context object for sharing state between tests. Use test.serial when tests must run sequentially.

Code coverage with nyc

Install nyc as a dev dependency and add a test script to package.json :

npm install --save-dev nyc
{
  "scripts": {
    "test": "nyc ava"
  }
}

Running npm test will execute the AVA tests and generate an .nyc_output directory. Add the output folder to .gitignore to avoid committing it.

Reporting to Codecov

Install the Codecov client and add a reporting script:

npm install --save-dev codecov
{
  "scripts": {
    "report-coverage": "nyc report --reporter=text-lcov > coverage.lcov && codecov"
  }
}

Set the environment variable CODECOV_TOKEN=<token> in your CI environment (the token is generated on the Codecov website) and run npm run report-coverage to upload the coverage data.

Continuous integration with Travis CI

Create a .travis.yml file similar to the following:

language: node_js
node_js:
  - "12"
sudo: required
before_install:
  - sudo apt-get install libevent-dev -y
install:
  - wget -O memcached.tar.gz http://memcached.org/files/memcached-1.5.20.tar.gz
  - tar -zxvf memcached.tar.gz
  - cd memcached-1.5.20
  - ./configure && make && sudo make install
  - memcached -d
script:
  - npm ci && npm test && npm run report-coverage

Define the CODECOV_TOKEN variable in the Travis Settings page. When a push is made to GitHub, Travis will install dependencies, run the tests, generate coverage, and upload it to Codecov, resulting in build‑passing badges.

Conclusion

Shields.io offers many badge types; by configuring them you can display build status, test coverage, and other metrics. The article demonstrated using AVA, nyc, Codecov, and Travis CI as a complete workflow for a Node.js project.