TDD Workflow

A procedure, not a body of knowledge. Follow the loop step by step; the value of TDD comes from the discipline of the sequence, not from knowing what it is.

When to Use This Skill

• The user asks for TDD, test-driven development, or "tests first"
• New behaviour is being added to code that already has a test suite
• A bug has been reported and the fix should not regress
• Existing code must be changed but has no tests to protect it
• The user wants confidence that a refactor preserved behaviour

Do not use this loop for exploratory spikes meant to be thrown away, or for code whose correct behaviour is not yet known. Explore first, then restart the loop against what you learned.

Core Concepts