Testing Philosophy

Universal principles for writing effective tests. Language-agnostic—applies across testing frameworks and languages.

Test Thinking

Before writing tests, commit to a clear approach:

• What is the ONE behavior this test suite must verify? If you can't answer clearly, the production code needs refactoring.
• Behavior or implementation? Tests should survive refactoring. If you're testing how, not what, you're coupling to implementation.
• What failure would make you distrust this code? Test that scenario first.

CRITICAL: You are capable of identifying subtle behavioral contracts that most tests miss. Don't write generic happy-path tests—find the edge cases that matter, the error handling that fails silently, the state transitions that corrupt data.

Core Principle

Test behavior, not implementation.

Tests should verify what code does, not how it does it. Implementation can change; behavior should remain stable.