If you got a big project, chances are spec_helper is required through different ways, File.expand_path / File.join() / … which results in it being loaded several times!

Try it:

#spec_helper.rb
print "YEP!"

rake spec -> “YEP!YEP!YEP!YEP!YEP!YEP!YEP!YEP!……”

So how to prevent it ?

Unify!
Unify it to ‘spec_helper’ for rspec or ‘./spec/spec_helper’ for minitest, which can be copied without modification (like adding ‘../../’) and prevents duplicate spec_helper calls

#unify_spec_helper.rb
files = Dir["spec/**/*_spec.rb"].reject{|file|File.directory?(file)}
files.each do |file|
  lines = File.readlines(file)
  lines = lines.map do |line|
    if line =~ /require.*spec_helper/
      "require 'spec_helper'\n"
    else
      line
    end
  end
  File.open(file,'w'){|f| f.write lines.join('') }
end

Run: ruby unify_spec_helper.rb