How to fix: NUnit unit tests not showing up in testing pad in Visual Studio Community (Mac)

Question

In spite of adding NUnit from NuGet to an existing .Net Core project, no unit tests are being shown in the Test Pad.

Note: I posted these images as links because I have

Answer 1

There are multiple requirements of that project, so that VS for Mac can identify and execute the test cases.

1. The project must be a console application of .NET Core.
2. The project must have a reference of Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk (required by VSTest infrastructure).
3. The project must have a reference of NUnit.
4. The project must have a reference of NUnit3TestAdapter (required by VSTest infrastructure).

Example,

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.2</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="NUnit" Version="3.11.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="NUnit3TestAdapter" Version="3.12.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk" Version="15.9.0" />
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

Note that VS for Windows and VS for Mac (and JetBrains Rider) all use VSTest for unit testing, so this setup works for all such IDEs.

Also note that if you didn't create this console project from dotnet new nunit, but a normal console application template, you need to manually delete the Main method.

Answer 2

The NuGet package only allows you to use the NUnit framework to write tests. In other words, it's like adding references to the NUnit DLLs.

You need to install the adapter to see the tests.

Answer 3

As lex-li comments, you should install the nuget version of the adapter (https://www.nuget.org/packages/NUnit3TestAdapter/3.12.0).
You install this into your solution, preferably for all test projects.

(The adapter on the marketplace is the vsix adapter, which can be installed into VS itself - but this practice is not recommended and as you points out, doesn't even seem to work for Mac Community version.)