test-kitchen update instead of create every time

Question

In test-kitchen, is there a way to update the instance created instead of destroying and recreating the instance every time? Say if I change in kitchen.yml and want to see that change, running the whole destroy/create can take a while.

Answer 1

Depending on the provider you are using - yes.

First, there are a few lifecycle steps:

1. kitchen create - this will create the instance. It's the equivalent of vagrant up --no-provision.
2. kitchen converge - this will converge (provision) the instance. It's the equivalent of vagrant provision.
3. kitchen verify - this will run any post-integration tests (like ServerSpec or bats). There is no equivalent in vagrant.
4. kitchen test - wraps the above three commands in a single sequence.

Test Kitchen does not have a notion of vagrant reload, which is what you seem to describe by your example. However, you can accomplish a reload by doing something like:

cd .kitchen/suite_name && vagrant reload

from the command line.