testing-strategies

name	testing-strategies
description	>- Use when this capability is needed.

Testing Strategies

When to Use This Skill

A well-tested CLI uses different testing strategies at different levels. This section covers:

• Unit Testing - Fake clients and interface-based design
• Integration Testing - envtest and real API servers
• E2E Testing - Full workflow tests in CI/CD

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Implementation

See the full implementation guide in the source documentation.

Key Principles

Practice	Description
Interface first	Design for testability with interfaces
Table-driven tests	Cover edge cases systematically
Parallel tests	Use t.Parallel() where safe
Build tags	Separate integration tests with //go:build integration
Clean up	Always clean up test resources

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Test at the right level. Unit tests catch logic bugs. Integration tests catch API issues. E2E tests catch workflow bugs.

Techniques

Overview

A well-tested CLI uses different testing strategies at different levels. This section covers:

• Unit Testing - Fake clients and interface-based design
• Integration Testing - envtest and real API servers
• E2E Testing - Full workflow tests in CI/CD

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Testing Pyramid

graph TB
    E2E[E2E Tests<br/>Full workflow in real cluster]
    Integration[Integration Tests<br/>Real API server with kind/envtest]
    Unit[Unit Tests<br/>Fake clients and mock interfaces]

    E2E --> Integration --> Unit

    %% Ghostty Hardcore Theme
    style E2E fill:#9e6ffe,color:#1b1d1e
    style Integration fill:#65d9ef,color:#1b1d1e
    style Unit fill:#a7e22e,color:#1b1d1e

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Test Organization

myctl/
├── cmd/
│   ├── check.go
│   └── check_test.go        # Command tests
├── pkg/
│   ├── k8s/
│   │   ├── client.go
│   │   ├── client_test.go   # Unit tests with fakes
│   │   └── fake_client.go   # Test doubles
│   └── selector/
│       ├── selector.go
│       └── selector_test.go
└── test/
    ├── e2e/                  # E2E tests
    └── fixtures/             # Test resources

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Makefile Targets

.PHONY: test test-unit test-integration test-e2e

test: test-unit

test-unit:
    go test -v -race ./...

test-integration:
    go test -v -tags=integration ./pkg/...

test-e2e:
    ./test/e2e/run.sh

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Best Practices

Practice	Description
Interface first	Design for testability with interfaces
Table-driven tests	Cover edge cases systematically
Parallel tests	Use t.Parallel() where safe
Build tags	Separate integration tests with //go:build integration
Clean up	Always clean up test resources

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Test at the right level. Unit tests catch logic bugs. Integration tests catch API issues. E2E tests catch workflow bugs.

Examples

See examples.md for code examples.

References

• Source Documentation
• AEL Build

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