Adding descriptions to assertions?

When doing something like: expect(something).to.exist

the output of a failure tends to be: AssertionError: expected undefined to exist

This is not very helpful if there is trouble with the stack-trace, something you can run into e.g. when using Chai+Mocha+Velocity+Meteor.

Ideally, there’d be something like an as(label) to add to the expectation: expect(something).as('Foo').to.exist

which could then generate a more helpful output: AssertionError: expected Foo to exist

[keithamus]

aka is a pretty nice name. Let’s see what others think.

[abenhamdine]

I’m surprised, because in nodejs, i’m used to do :

 expect(something, 'Foo').to.be.a('string');

Why couldn’t it be useful for your case ?