Can you share your full karma.conf.js ? You probably have some other pattern before the test-main.js, that matches the file and is not watched.

How about I just do this: https://github.com/jamestalmage/karma-issue-521

Updated the repo with clearer instructions to reproduce

Woow, you are right, that was actually a bug! Thanks for very nice report, it was super easy to reproduce and debug with your example @jamestalmage !

It's fixed in master (and stable).

Btw, it's better, if you server only chai module, so that the glob does not have to traverse your whole node_modules:

files = [
  // ...
  {pattern: 'node_modules/chai/**/*.js', included:false, watched:false, served:true}
];

Thanks, glad to help!

As for optimizing the pattern for glob, that makes sense. Even more so with require.js as window.__karma__.files contains every file in the node_modules directory (which are then scanned again by each browser under test to find the files that match my test RegEx). Even your example is somewhat inefficient, it matches 27 files when only 1 is needed (node_modules/chai/chai.js). Obviously, that is easy enough to fix with a more specific pattern, but as my dependency list grows, tracking down the most efficient pattern for each dependency might get cumbersome. In addition, that path information is kinda getting duplicated in test-main.js (might be unavoidable, but entering it twice feels wrong).

Is there room for an additional file pattern option (maybe indexed) that could be set to false to tell karma not to include it in the window.__karma__.files array, so browsers are not scanning all those files to find tests?

If the indexed option were added, you could do some further optimizations, for 'served-only' files. In this case, don't build a glob against the pattern, defer processing it until a matching request is made from the browser. By served-only I mean included:false, watched:false, indexed:false, served:true.

Maybe I am making things too difficult and we only need a simpler servDirs config option completely separate from files, that basically allows you to list directories that will be served in their entirety (not included / watched / etc):

files = [
/// files that you want included and/or watched for changes and/or might be tests
];

servedDirs = [
'images',
'node_modules', 
'bower_components'  
];

The __karma__.files IS a map of all served files. I don't see reasons for adding "indexed". Rather use files and exclude to define your deps as explicitly as possible.

@vojtajina I'm a bit confused as to how to get the updated version. I've tried all the following:

npm install -g karma
npm install karma
sudo npm install -g karma
sudo npm install karma

tried npm cache clear before each, as well as repeating with karma@canary.

I am obviously missing something.

@jamestalmage sorry, you are not missing anything, I'm just stupid - I didn't push any release to npm since this change. Sorry I was very busy last month and didn't have any time for Karma. I will do it soon.

@jamestalmage it's pushed in NPM, please update...