Run TestNG programmatically (without testng.xml)

We can run TestNG programmatically (without testng.xml) by using the org.testng.TestNG class in Java. This is useful when you want to dynamically control which tests run.

package com.testingdocs.testng.tutorials;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import org.testng.TestNG;
import org.testng.xml.XmlClass;
import org.testng.xml.XmlSuite;
import org.testng.xml.XmlTest;

public class TestNGRunner {
	public static void main(String[] args) {

		// Create an instance of XML Suite and assign a name
		XmlSuite suite = new XmlSuite();
		suite.setName("Sample Suite");

		// Create an instance of XmlTest and assign a name
		XmlTest test = new XmlTest(suite);
		test.setName("Sample Test");

		// Create a list of classes to run
		List<XmlClass> classes = new ArrayList<>();
		classes.add(new XmlClass("com.testingdocs.testng.tutorials.TestNGExample"));
		classes.add(new XmlClass("com.testingdocs.testng.tutorials.TestNGMethodDependency"));

		// Assign the classes to the XmlTest object
		test.setXmlClasses(classes);

		// Add the XmlTest to a list of tests, then add to the suite
		List<XmlTest> tests = new ArrayList<>();
		tests.add(test);
		suite.setTests(tests);

		// Add the suite to a list of suites
		List<XmlSuite> suites = new ArrayList<>();
		suites.add(suite);

		// Create a TestNG object and set the list of suites
		TestNG testng = new TestNG();
		testng.setXmlSuites(suites);

		// Run the tests
		testng.run();
	}
}

This Java program runs TestNG tests programmatically instead of using a testng.xml file. Normally TestNG tests are executed through an XML configuration file, but this code creates the same configuration dynamically in Java code.

Create a TestNG Suite

Here we create a TestNG suite object.

Equivalent to XML:

Common use cases

• Custom test runners
• Running tests from tools or frameworks
• Building dynamic test suites
• Running tests from CLI tools
• Integrating with CI/CD pipelines