Unresolved Behavior of pytest --maxfail for Accessibility

Goal: Reduce Test Output for Assistive Technologies

Screen‑reader users often struggle with lengthy pytest reports. Limiting the number of failures shown with --maxfail can streamline the output and make it more consumable.

Uncertain Behavior of --maxfail

The official help text indicates that --maxfail stops execution after a specified number of failures, but it does not document what happens when the value is zero or negative. Community chatter suggests that --maxfail=0 may be treated as unlimited, yet this is not formally confirmed in the current stable release.

Questions

• Does setting --maxfail=0 truly disable the failure cap, or is it interpreted as an unlimited limit?
• What is the documented or expected behavior when a negative value is supplied?
• Which value should be recommended to achieve minimal output while preserving critical failure information for users relying on assistive technologies?