The --filter option limits which test modules are executed by node test. The default pretest step is still node-gyp rebuild -C test, so npm test --filter=... still performs a full rebuild of the test addon targets before the filtered tests run.
objectwrap test modulenpm test --filter=objectwrap
reference (function_reference, object_reference, and reference)npm test --filter=*reference
threadsafe_function and typed_threadsafe_function, and also the objectwrap test modulenpm test --filter='*function objectwrap'