Test Design as Thinking

Overview

Test strategy, not test generation. Treat test design as an act of specification — articulate the contract, find the boundaries, surface hidden assumptions. Use Beck's Test Desiderata to make testing tradeoffs deliberate instead of accidental.

Beck's 12 Test Desiderata

Every test balances these properties. No test maximizes all twelve. The skill is knowing which to prioritize.

Property	Definition	Tension
Isolated	Same results regardless of run order	vs. speed (shared setup)
Composable	Test dimensions of variability separately	vs. writability (more tests)
Deterministic	Same results if nothing changes	vs. realism (real services)
Fast	Run quickly	vs. predictiveness (integration)
Writable	Cheap to write relative to code cost	vs. thoroughness
Readable	Comprehensible, invokes motivation	vs. conciseness
Behavioral	Sensitive to behavior changes	vs. structure-insensitivity
Structure-insensitive	Unaffected by refactoring	vs. behavioral sensitivity
Automated	No human intervention needed	vs. exploratory testing
Specific	Failure cause is obvious	vs. breadth of coverage
Predictive	Passing means production-ready	vs. speed and isolation
Inspiring	Passing builds confidence to deploy	vs. all other properties

See references/desiderata.md for application guidance.

Test Design Workflow

1. Articulate the Contract

Before writing any test, answer:

• What does this code promise to callers?
• What does it require from its inputs?
• What side effects does it produce?
• What invariants must always hold?

If you can't answer these, the code's contract is unclear. Fix that first.

2. Identify Boundaries

Every contract has edges. Test them:

• Empty/zero/null — the degenerate case
• One — the simplest non-empty case
• Many — the normal case
• Boundary — max values, off-by-one, type limits
• Error — invalid input, unavailable dependencies
• Concurrent — multiple callers, race conditions

3. Choose the Testing Approach

Match the approach to what you're testing:

Example-based tests — specific inputs and expected outputs. Best for known contracts with clear boundaries.

Property-based tests — invariants that hold for all inputs. Best for algorithms, parsers, serialization (encode/decode roundtrip), and sorting.

Integration tests — multiple components together. Best for verifying wiring, data flow, and contracts between modules.

Snapshot tests — output matches recorded baseline. Best for rendering, serialization, and configuration.

4. Apply the Testing Trophy

Kent C. Dodds' priority order:

         ┌──────┐
         │  E2E │  Few, slow, high confidence
        ┌┴──────┴┐
        │Integra-│  Most tests here
        │  tion  │
       ┌┴────────┴┐
       │   Unit   │  Many, fast, specific
      ┌┴──────────┴┐
      │   Static   │  Types, linters, formatters
      └────────────┘

"The more your tests resemble the way your software is used, the more confidence they can give you."

5. Evaluate Existing Tests

Ask of each test:

• Which Desiderata properties does it maximize?
• Which did it sacrifice? Was that deliberate?
• Does it test behavior or implementation detail?
• If this test fails, will the message tell you why?
• If the implementation changes but behavior doesn't, does this test break? (It shouldn't)

Test Smells

Smell	Symptom	Fix
Testing implementation	Breaks on refactor, behavior unchanged	Test outputs, not internals
Tautological test	Repeats production logic in assertions	Test observable behavior
Happy path only	No error/boundary cases	Add boundary analysis
Flaky	Passes sometimes, fails sometimes	Fix nondeterminism or mark explicitly
Giant arrange	30 lines of setup for 1 assertion	Simplify the interface or use builders
Invisible assertion	expect(result).toBeTruthy()	Assert specific values
Test per method	One test per function, misses integration	Test use cases, not methods

Strategy Templates

For a pure function:

## Contract

[function name]: [input types] → [output type]

- Promises: [what it guarantees]
- Requires: [what inputs must satisfy]

## Test Cases

- [ ] Empty/zero input
- [ ] Single valid input
- [ ] Multiple valid inputs
- [ ] Boundary values
- [ ] Invalid inputs (error cases)
- [ ] Properties that hold for all inputs

For an API endpoint:

## Contract

[METHOD /path]: [request] → [response]

- Auth: [required/optional/none]
- Idempotent: [yes/no]

## Test Cases

- [ ] Happy path (valid request → expected response)
- [ ] Validation failures (400)
- [ ] Auth failures (401/403)
- [ ] Not found (404)
- [ ] Concurrent requests
- [ ] Rate limiting

For a UI component:

## Contract

[Component]: [props] → [rendered output + interactions]

## Test Cases

- [ ] Renders with required props
- [ ] Renders with all optional props
- [ ] User interactions trigger callbacks
- [ ] Loading/error/empty states
- [ ] Accessibility (keyboard nav, screen reader)

Output Format

When designing test strategy:

## Test Strategy for [feature/module]

### Contract

[What this code promises and requires]

### Priority Properties

[Which Desiderata properties matter most and why]

### Test Plan

1. [Test case] — [what it verifies] — [approach]
2. [Test case] — [what it verifies] — [approach]

### Tradeoffs Accepted

- [Property sacrificed] because [reason]

### Not Testing

- [What's deliberately excluded and why]

The Confidence Question

After designing the test suite, ask: "If all these tests pass, would you deploy with confidence?" If no, identify what's missing. If yes, stop — more tests beyond confidence are waste.

See Also

• /debugging — Test failures trigger debugging; debugging reveals missing tests
• /review — Reviews assess test coverage alongside code quality
• skills/FRAMEWORKS.md — Full framework index
• RECIPE.md — Agent recipe for parallel decomposition (2 workers)