Vitest incorrectly retries the `it.fails` tests

[aslushnikov]

Describe the bug

Vitest keeps retrying the test that fails and which is marked as it.fails.

Reproduction

Consider the following Vitest test:

import { expect, it } from 'vitest';

it.fails('vitest bug', { retry: 2 }, async (ctx) => {
  console.log('attempt!');    
  expect(1).toBe(2);
});

I expect to see attempt! output only once: the test is declared as failing and it fails on the first attempt.
Instead, I see 3 attempts.

System Info

System:
    OS: macOS 26.5.1
    CPU: (10) arm64 Apple M1 Max
    Memory: 996.88 MB / 32.00 GB
    Shell: 3.2.57 - /bin/bash
  Binaries:
    Node: 20.20.2 - /Users/aslushnikov/fk/vitest/node_modules/.bin/node
    npm: 11.17.0 - /Users/aslushnikov/.local/share/mise/installs/node/latest/bin/npm
    pnpm: 11.5.0 - /Users/aslushnikov/.local/share/mise/installs/pnpm/latest/pnpm
  Browsers:
    Chrome: 151.0.7922.174
    Safari: 26.5
  npmPackages:
    @vitest/browser: ^4.1.10 => 4.1.10
    @vitest/browser-playwright: ^4.1.10 => 4.1.10
    @vitest/utils: ^4.1.10 => 4.1.10
    playwright: ^1.61.1 => 1.61.1
    vitest: ^4.1.10 => 4.1.10

Used Package Manager

pnpm

Validations

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[hi-ogawa]

This feels like a matter of interpretation.

Currently test(.., { retry }) serves as "retry until it passes" and test.fails(..., { retry }) serves as "retry until it fails", so this behavior seems to have more justifiable semantics and use cases than what's proposed (which seems to be just ignore retry).

What is the use case where you have test.fails(..., { retry })? Would it be through global --retry flag or some suite inheritance? (in which case the inheritance behavior may be a little surprising for test.fails indeed)

[hi-ogawa]

test.fails(..., { retry }) serves as "retry until it fails"

Oh wait, I think I confused myself. This isn't current vitest behavior.

[aslushnikov]

@hi-ogawa The retry in the example is just to demonstrate the behavior; the same happens with retries configured in a vitest config:

// foo.spec.ts
import { expect, it } from 'vitest';

it.fails('vitest bug', async (ctx) => {
  console.log('attempt!');    
  expect(1).toBe(2);
});

// vitest.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'vitest/config';

export default defineConfig({
  test: {
    retry: 2,
  },
});

I'd expect the it.fails to set an "expected test outcome", so when the test executes and fails, it works as expected, and thus passes.
At least that's how it works in Playwright Test; the following does only a single attempt:

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';

test.describe.configure({ retries: 2 });

test.fail('expected failure', async () => {
  console.log('attempt!');
  expect(1).toBe(2);
});