Angular 2 Unit Tests: Cannot find name 'describe'

Question

I hope you've installed -

npm install --save-dev @types/jasmine

Then put following import at the top of the hero.spec.ts file -

import 'jasmine';

It should solve the problem.

With [email protected] or later you can install types with:

npm install -D @types/jasmine

Then import the types automatically using the types option in tsconfig.json:

"types": ["jasmine"],

This solution does not require import {} from 'jasmine'; in each spec file.

npm install @types/jasmine

As mentioned in some comments the "types": ["jasmine"] is not needed anymore, all @types packages are automatically included in compilation (since v2.1 I think).

In my opinion the easiest solution is to exclude the test files in your tsconfig.json like:

"exclude": [
    "node_modules",
    "**/*.spec.ts"
]

This works for me.

Further information in the official tsconfig docs.

You need to install typings for jasmine. Assuming you are on a relatively recent version of typescript 2 you should be able to do:

npm install --save-dev @types/jasmine

With [email protected] or later you can install types with npm install

npm install --save-dev @types/jasmine

then import the types automatically using the typeRoots option in tsconfig.json.

"typeRoots": [
      "node_modules/@types"
    ],

This solution does not require import {} from 'jasmine'; in each spec file.

Solution to this problem is connected with what @Pace has written in his answer. However, it doesn't explain everything so, if you don't mind, I'll write it by myself.

SOLUTION:

Adding this line:

///<reference path="./../../../typings/globals/jasmine/index.d.ts"/>

at the beginning of hero.spec.ts file fixes problem. Path leads to typings folder (where all typings are stored).

To install typings you need to create typings.json file in root of your project with following content:

{
  "globalDependencies": {
    "core-js": "registry:dt/core-js#0.0.0+20160602141332",
    "jasmine": "registry:dt/jasmine#2.2.0+20160621224255",
    "node": "registry:dt/node#6.0.0+20160807145350"
  }
}

And run typings install (where typings is NPM package).

In my case, the solution was to remove the typeRoots in my tsconfig.json.

As you can read in the TypeScript doc

If typeRoots is specified, only packages under typeRoots will be included.