| name | tdd |
| description | Test-driven development. Use when building a feature or fixing a bug test-first, when the user asks for red-green-refactor, or when a change needs its tests written before its implementation. |
Test-Driven Development
Seams
A seam is where a module's interface lives: the place a caller observes behavior without reaching inside. Tests run at seams.
Before writing any test, ask the user what the public interface is and which seams to test. Write no test at an unconfirmed seam.
When the interface shape is itself in question, read LANGUAGE.md for the vocabulary: module, interface, implementation, depth, seam, adapter, locality.
The Loop
One seam, one test, one minimal implementation per cycle.
- Write one failing test at a confirmed seam. Run it and confirm it fails for the reason you expect.
- Write only enough code to pass it. Anticipate no later test and add no speculative feature.
- Return to step 1 with what the cycle taught.
Refactoring belongs to review, outside the loop: review:code for correctness, simplify for reuse and shape.
The work is done when every confirmed seam has a test that failed before its implementation existed.
What a Good Test Is
Verify behavior through the interface. Name the test as a specification: "user can checkout with valid cart" names a capability. Use the domain language the surrounding code uses.
See references/tests.md for good and bad pairs, and references/mocking.md for which seams get a substitute adapter.
Anti-Patterns
Implementation-Coupled
The test substitutes an internal collaborator, exercises a private method, or verifies through a side channel such as querying the database instead of reading back through the interface. The tell: a refactor breaks the test while behavior is unchanged.
Tautological
The assertion recomputes the expected value the way the code computes it: expect(add(a, b)).toBe(a + b), a snapshot worked out by hand through the same steps, a constant asserted equal to itself. Take expected values from an independent source: a known-good literal, a worked example, the spec.
Horizontal Slicing
Writing every test first, then every implementation. Work in vertical slices: one test, one implementation, repeat, each cycle responding to what the last one taught.
Adapted from mattpocock/skills skills/engineering/tdd/SKILL.md at 6654f6b, MIT.
