rake default test task does not use the test.rb environment

You don't need to run with trace. I am getting the right result.

$ rake
(in /Users/nsingh/dev/rails_tickets/r3_5580)
Loading test
/Users/nsingh/dev/rails_tickets/r3_5580/config/routes.rb:1: warning: multiple values for a block parameter (0 for 1)
    from /Users/nsingh/dev/rails_tickets/r3_5580/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:231
Loaded suite /Users/nsingh/.rvm/gems/ree-1.8.7-2010.01/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake/rake_test_loader
Started
.
Finished in 0.007541 seconds.

1 tests, 1 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors
Loading test
/Users/nsingh/dev/rails_tickets/r3_5580/config/routes.rb:1: warning: multiple values for a block parameter (0 for 1)
    from /Users/nsingh/dev/rails_tickets/r3_5580/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:231
Loaded suite /Users/nsingh/.rvm/gems/ree-1.8.7-2010.01/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake/rake_test_loader
Started
.......
Finished in 0.120012 seconds.

7 tests, 10 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors
Loaded suite /Users/nsingh/.rvm/gems/ree-1.8.7-2010.01/bin/rake
Started

This is on ruby 1.8.7

Another way to test would be to add raise 'boom' at the top of your test.rb .

I've tried to reproduce your problem, and I can confirm that there's no "Loading test" output when I have no test case in test/*. However, when I add a unit test then I got this output:

[master][~/Projects/test_edge] rake --trace                  
(in /Users/sikachu/Projects/test_edge)
** Invoke default (first_time)
** Invoke test (first_time)
** Execute test
** Invoke test:units (first_time)
** Invoke test:prepare (first_time)
** Invoke db:test:prepare (first_time)
** Invoke db:abort_if_pending_migrations (first_time)
** Invoke environment (first_time)
** Execute environment
>> Loading development
** Execute db:abort_if_pending_migrations
** Execute db:test:prepare
** Invoke db:test:load (first_time)
** Invoke db:test:purge (first_time)
** Invoke environment 
** Execute db:test:purge
** Execute db:test:load
** Invoke db:schema:load (first_time)
** Invoke environment 
** Execute db:schema:load
** Execute test:prepare
** Execute test:units
>> Loading test
Loaded suite /Users/sikachu/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p302@rails3/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake/rake_test_loader
Started
.
Finished in 0.022144 seconds.

1 tests, 1 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors
** Invoke test:functionals (first_time)
** Invoke test:prepare 
** Execute test:functionals
** Invoke test:integration (first_time)
** Invoke test:prepare 
** Execute test:integration
** Execute default

Note that you'll see both "Loading development" and "Loading test" in my output. But why?

Turns out that when Rails staring the test, it actually change the environment to test and then execute another Ruby process to load new environment. You can see that in test/test_helper.rb

**test/test_helper.rb**

ENV["RAILS_ENV"] = "test"
require File.expand_path('../../config/environment', __FILE__)
require 'rails/test_help'

You said that you're using RSpec, and I think RSpec is doing the same thing by changing environment to test and then execute another Ruby process to load new environment. It does that in test/spec_helper.rb

**spec/spec_helper.rb**

# This file is copied to spec/ when you run 'rails generate rspec:install'
ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'
require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'

And yet when I run rake --trace with rspec installed, you can see that it has almost the same output as test_unit. Also, you could see that it creating another Ruby process before loading the test environment.

[~/Projects/test_rspec] rake --trace
(in /Users/sikachu/Projects/test_rspec)
** Invoke default (first_time)
** Invoke spec (first_time)
** Invoke db:test:prepare (first_time)
** Invoke db:abort_if_pending_migrations (first_time)
** Invoke environment (first_time)
** Execute environment
>> Loading development
** Execute db:abort_if_pending_migrations
** Execute db:test:prepare
** Invoke db:test:load (first_time)
** Invoke db:test:purge (first_time)
** Invoke environment 
** Execute db:test:purge
** Execute db:test:load
** Invoke db:schema:load (first_time)
** Invoke environment 
** Execute db:schema:load
** Execute spec
/Users/sikachu/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/bin/ruby -S bundle exec  /Users/sikachu/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p302/bin/ruby  -Ilib -Ispec "./spec/models/user_spec.rb" 
>> Loading test
.

Finished in 0.01218 seconds
1 example, 0 failures
** Execute default

So, I think this is the expected behavior, as normally db:abort_if_pending_migrations task will run every time you run rake to make sure you have migrated your development database. And that task is actually the one that depends on environment, which loads the default development environment and output that "Load development" line for you.

From your original problem, I think there's some misconfiguration in your config/environements/test.rb file which causes RSpec not load the configuration.

I'm marking this as invalid again, as I think this is the expected behavior and I think my examples are clear :)