Setting Expectations for the Node.js Test Runner

Node.js began shipping an experimental test runner starting in version 18). A year later, in Node 20, the test runner was marked stable. Since its introduction, I would say the test runner has been generally well received. I have read blog posts, interacted with users on the Node.js issue tracker, listened to conference talks and YouTube videos, and even had conversations with people in real life like the old days. I have noticed a few points that keep coming up, so I decided to write this blog post to help people set appropriate expectations for Node's test runner.