testing

name	testing
version	0.3.0
description	Writes and documents the test suite for a generated cli-web-* CLI (Phase 3): unit tests with mocked HTTP, live E2E tests, subprocess tests via _resolve_cli, and the TEST.md plan/results record. Use after the methodology skill completes implementation.
when_to_use	Trigger phrases: "write tests for cli-web-*", "start Phase 3", "create TEST.md", "add E2E tests", "add subprocess tests", "test the CLI". Not for traffic capture, implementation, or quality validation (standards).

CLI-Anything-Web Testing

Write and document tests for cli-web-* CLIs. This skill owns the full testing lifecycle: test implementation and test documentation (plan + results).

Copy this checklist and check off items as you complete them:

Phase 3 Progress:
- [ ] Prerequisites: implementation complete, CLI installed, <APP>.md exists
- [ ] Auth verified working (auth login + status) — auth CLIs only
- [ ] Unit tests written (mocked HTTP, typed-exception + helper coverage)
- [ ] E2E tests written (live round-trips, FAIL not skip on missing auth)
- [ ] Subprocess tests written (_resolve_cli pattern)
- [ ] TEST.md Part 1 generated (generate-test-docs.py plan)
- [ ] Full suite green incl. CLI_WEB_FORCE_INSTALLED=1 subprocess run
- [ ] TEST.md Part 2 appended (generate-test-docs.py results)
- [ ] phase-state marked complete

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Prerequisites (Hard Gate)

Do NOT start unless:

• Implementation is complete (all core modules + commands exist)
• pip install -e . succeeds and cli-web-<app> is on PATH
• <APP>.md exists with API map and auth scheme

If implementation is incomplete, invoke the methodology skill first. If the methodology phase is marked failed in phase-state, follow skills/shared/RECOVERY.md §phase-state Check Failures.

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Auth Must Be Working Before E2E Tests

For auth-required sites: run cli-web-<app> auth login then auth status (must show valid). Tests that skip or catch auth errors are broken — use pytest.fail() if auth is missing (CONVENTIONS.md §Auth Rules "Tests"). No-auth sites skip auth setup entirely.

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Write Tests

Goal: Comprehensive test suite. Document what you're testing as you write it — TEST.md Part 1 (the plan) is written alongside the test code, not as a separate gate before it.

Testing Layer Strategy

The standard three-layer suite is: unit tests (mocked HTTP) + live E2E tests + subprocess tests. This covers fast correctness, real integration, and installed CLI.

Layer	File	Purpose
Unit	test_core.py	Core functions with mocked HTTP. No network. Fast.
E2E live	test_e2e.py	Real API calls. Require auth — FAIL (not skip) without it.
CLI subprocess	test_e2e.py	Installed cli-web-<app> via _resolve_cli(). Full end-to-end.
Integration (VCR)	test_integration.py	Recorded HTTP cassettes via VCR.py. Reproducible, no network. Recommended for RPC protocols.

Optional — fixture replay layer: Only add this if the site has complex HTML parsing or non-trivial response transformations worth preserving. For straightforward JSON APIs, fixture replay adds maintenance cost without much benefit.

Layer (optional)	File	Purpose
E2E fixture	test_e2e.py	Replay captured responses from tests/fixtures/. Verifies parsing logic.

Parallel Test Writing

Dispatch test_core.py and test_e2e.py writing as parallel subagents — they're independent. Start unit tests during Phase 2 if possible (they don't depend on commands).

Testing Rules

• Unit tests: unittest.mock.patch for HTTP, real CSS class names in HTML fixtures
• E2E: require auth (pytest.fail if missing), verify response body fields not just status
• Subprocess: _resolve_cli("cli-web-<app>") — see references/resolve-cli-pattern.md
• HTML scraper assertions: check actual fields (name, id, price), not just isinstance(results, list)
• See references/test-code-examples.md for patterns

VCR.py Integration Tests (Recommended for RPC/GraphQL)

For complex protocols, add a recorded-cassette layer between unit and live E2E — real responses, replayed offline. Setup, recording workflow, and the marker convention: references/vcr-testing.md.

Fixture Realism (for HTML scrapers)

If the CLI uses HTML scraping (BeautifulSoup, lxml), unit test fixtures must mirror the real page's CSS class structure — not a generic simplified table.

A fixture like <table><tr><td>GK</td><td>95</td></tr></table> will pass even if the real parser is completely broken against the live site's actual markup. The parser was written to match specific CSS classes (table-player-name, platform-ps-only, table-pos-main) — the fixture must have those same classes.

When to apply this: any CLI module that calls .find(class_=...) or .find_all(...) on response HTML. If the module only parses JSON (resp.json()), skip this — JSON fixtures are naturally structural.

Practical check: look at your parser's .find(class_="...") calls. If your fixture HTML doesn't contain those exact class names, the fixture is not testing the parser.

CLI Output Sanity Checks (Critical)

Every --json output must be checked for raw protocol leakage. These are bugs the agent MUST catch before declaring tests pass:

# In E2E tests, assert the output is real data, not raw RPC fragments:
def test_chat_returns_text_not_rpc(client, notebook_id):
    """Chat answer must be human-readable text, not raw batchexecute chunks."""
    result = client.chat_query(notebook_id, "What is this about?")
    # RED FLAGS — fail if any of these appear in the answer:
    assert "wrb.fr" not in result, "Raw RPC data leaked into chat output"
    assert "af.httprm" not in result, "Raw RPC data leaked into chat output"
    assert '"di"' not in result, "Raw RPC data leaked into chat output"
    assert len(result) > 50, "Answer too short — may be empty or error"

def test_sources_list_after_add(client, notebook_id):
    """Sources must appear in list after being added."""
    source = client.add_url_source(notebook_id, "https://example.com")
    import time; time.sleep(5)  # Wait for indexing
    sources = client.list_sources(notebook_id)
    assert len(sources) > 0, "Sources list empty after add — check GET_NOTEBOOK params"
    assert any(s.id == source.id for s in sources), "Added source not in list"

Subprocess test equivalent:

def test_cli_chat_output_is_text(self):
    """CLI chat --json output must contain readable answer, not raw RPC."""
    result = subprocess.run(
        [cli, "chat", "ask", "--query", "test", "--json"],
        capture_output=True, text=True, encoding="utf-8",
    )
    data = json.loads(result.stdout)
    assert "wrb.fr" not in data.get("answer", ""), "Raw RPC leaked"
    assert len(data.get("answer", "")) > 20, "Answer suspiciously short"

Response Body Verification

Verify response bodies for every CRUD operation — status 200 alone is insufficient. Create → check fields match, Read → check ID matches, Delete → verify 404 on re-read.

Exception Testing

Unit tests MUST verify that the client raises the correct typed exceptions — without these assertions, a client that always raises generic Exception would pass the suite:

# test_core.py
def test_auth_error_on_401(mock_client):
    """Client raises AuthError on 401, not generic exception."""
    with pytest.raises(AuthError) as exc_info:
        mock_client.notebooks.list()  # mocked to return 401
    assert exc_info.value.recoverable is True

def test_rate_limit_error_on_429(mock_client):
    """Client raises RateLimitError with retry_after on 429."""
    with pytest.raises(RateLimitError) as exc_info:
        mock_client.notebooks.list()  # mocked to return 429
    assert exc_info.value.retry_after == 60

def test_json_error_output(cli_runner):
    """--json mode outputs structured error, not plain text."""
    result = cli_runner.invoke(cli, ["--json", "notebooks", "get", "nonexistent"])
    data = json.loads(result.output)
    assert data["error"] is True
    assert "code" in data

Helper Function Testing

Unit tests cover the shared helpers in utils/helpers.py — every command routes through them, so a bug here silently breaks the whole CLI. Required coverage: partial-ID resolution (unique prefix, ambiguous raises), filename sanitization, persistent context set/get, and handle_errors exit codes. Complete code patterns: references/test-code-examples.md §Helper tests.

handle_errors exit codes (contract)

CLIs scaffolded from template v2.1+ map domain errors to the numeric exit-code contract (CONVENTIONS.md §Exit Codes) — assert the contract:

def test_handle_errors_auth_exit_code():
    with pytest.raises(SystemExit) as exc:
        with handle_errors():
            raise AuthError("expired")
    assert exc.value.code == 3      # EXIT_AUTH

def test_handle_errors_unknown_exit_code():
    with pytest.raises(SystemExit) as exc:
        with handle_errors():
            raise ValueError("bug")
    assert exc.value.code == 1      # EXIT_UNKNOWN

CLIs generated before template v2.1 use the legacy codes (domain=1, unexpected=2) — assert whatever the CLI's own helpers.py implements; do not change a legacy CLI's exit codes from a test.

Round-Trip Test Requirement

Every E2E live test MUST include at minimum a create-read-verify round-trip — a test that only creates without reading back cannot detect silent data loss or malformed request bodies:

create entity -> read it back -> verify fields match -> update ->
verify update -> delete -> verify 404 on read

Tests that only create without reading back give false confidence.

For read-only CLIs: The round-trip becomes: list resources → get one by ID → verify fields match between list and detail views. No create/update/delete round-trip is needed.

The _resolve_cli Pattern

The subprocess test rule is defined in skills/shared/CONVENTIONS.md §Subprocess Test Rule (_resolve_cli, no cwd, CLI_WEB_FORCE_INSTALLED=1, UTF-8 subprocess encoding). The complete helper function and TestCLISubprocess class are in references/resolve-cli-pattern.md.

TEST.md Part 1 — Write As You Go

After writing all tests, generate the test plan automatically:

python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/generate-test-docs.py plan \
  <app>/agent-harness/cli_web/<app>/tests/ --app-name <app>

This parses test files via AST and creates TEST.md Part 1 with test inventory, class breakdowns, and method listings. Review and enhance the generated plan with additional context:

1. Test Inventory — List test files and actual test counts
2. Unit Test Plan — For each core module: functions tested, edge cases covered
3. E2E Test Plan — Live CRUD workflows and what is verified
4. Realistic Workflow Scenarios — Multi-step flows with verification criteria:

Handling Client-Side Operations in E2E Tests

Some batchexecute/RPC operations are client-side — the browser generates the ID and the API just acknowledges (returns null). Common for project/document creation in Google apps.

• Detect: create_X() returned None during the methodology smoke check.
• Test instead: operations that work via RPC (delete with a safe target, list-diff create), and pytest.skip with the reason when create is browser-only. Code patterns: references/test-code-examples.md §Client-side operations.
• Document in TEST.md which operations are client-side and untestable via E2E.

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Run & Verify

1. Verify auth is working FIRST:

   cli-web-<app> auth login              # opens browser via Python playwright
   cli-web-<app> auth status             # must show live validation: OK
   

   If auth status fails, fix it before proceeding.

2. Run full test suite: python -m pytest cli_web/<app>/tests/ -v --tb=short

3. Run subprocess tests: CLI_WEB_FORCE_INSTALLED=1 python -m pytest cli_web/<app>/tests/ -v -s -k subprocess

4. ALL tests must pass. If E2E tests fail with auth errors, go back to step 1. Do NOT record "auth not configured" as a test result — that means auth is broken.

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Document Results in TEST.md

Goal: Append test results to TEST.md (Part 2).

Part 2 is appended to the existing Part 1. Never overwrite.

Generate Part 2 automatically after all tests pass:

python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/generate-test-docs.py results \
  <app>/agent-harness/cli_web/<app>/tests/ --app-name <app>

This runs pytest, captures output, and appends Part 2 with summary metrics and raw output. Review the generated results for accuracy.

Include example CLI usage in README.md.

Failure Handling

When tests fail:

1. Show failures with full pytest output
2. Do NOT update TEST.md — it should only contain passing results
3. Analyze and suggest specific fixes
4. Offer to re-run after fixes

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Next Step

When all tests pass, mark phase complete and invoke the standards skill:

python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/phase-state.py complete <app> --phase testing

References: resolve-cli-pattern.md, test-code-examples.md