When you try to execute any of the “kitchen” commands in Chef Test Kitchen you may get the following error message.
lib/kitchen/config.rb:182:in `block in filter_instances': undefined method `empty?' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
This happened in my cookbook, when I have removed the value from the “excludes:” option in the .kitchen.yml file, but left the “excludes:” option there alone.
To make your cookbook work in Chef Test Kitchen again, remove the empty “excludes:” option form the .kitchen.yml file