This was caused by the tester having Perl::Critic::Nits installed, which is not part of core Perl::Critic.
Perl::Critic tests should NOT be enabled by default for any CPAN distribution. Do with your P::C test whatever you do with the rest of your author tests to prevent them running by default. As others have said, you can specify the verbosity in a perlcriticrc file. Personally, I use this everywhere: verbose = %f: %m at line %l, column %c. %e. (Severity: %s, %p)\n This includes the short name of the policy (the %p) at the end. You could have blocked this policy and all other non-core policies using the theme option: theme = core But you should still shouldn't allow it to run by default. Let us say that your code is perfect as far as P::C is concerned. Your distribution gets installed on thousands of peoples' machines and all the tests run perfectly on every single one of them. A year goes by and everybody is happy (without you having to change a thing). A new version of Perl::Critic comes out with a new policy which your code doesn't comply with (you evil person, your POD isn't written in Pig Latin!). Suddenly, your code looks bad and no one can install your distribution. You really don't want Perl::Critic being run as part of regular testing in a CPAN distribution. (DarkPAN code is another matter.)
