Test quality

Help tests catch regressions without slowing the developer down. This file governs every test written or changed during ordinary work; the deeper modes run only when the user asks for them and load their own reference:

• Test audit: find low-value existing tests and remove or repair them. Read references/test-audit.md.
• Project audit: judge how the project organizes testing, scaled to its size, with a short report, approved fixes, and on request a TESTING.md. Read references/project-audit.md.
• Campaign: prune one subsystem's whole test surface. Read references/test-audit.md and references/campaign.md.

Practices for writing tests are in references/test-design.md; runner mechanics in references/tooling.md.

The three deeper modes start by reading the project's testing notes and end by updating them as references/notes.md describes.

The skill assumes no particular language, test runner, or CI system.

Authority

What the current task and the repository's rules already authorize continues without new questions: writing and fixing the tests the change needs, small testability refactors such as extracting a pure function (explained in the result), and the project's usual local and CI runs. Ask first when an action widens the scope, adds a recurring or paid cost, touches a shared or production environment or an external service, weakens a protection, or changes a public interface or the architecture.

A request to audit or review, in any mode, is read-only: report and change nothing except the project notes an audit writes; changes to their AGENTS.md block require authority to edit repository instructions. A fix or cleanup request authorizes the edits it names or the recommendations the user approved; quarantining a test, changing retry or timeout policy, changing repository settings such as branch protection, required checks, or a merge queue, and adding a blocking gate or scheduled job are approved one by one unless the request named them. An explicit campaign request authorizes the campaign's edits. Commit, push, integrate branches, open a pull request, or merge only when authorized, under the repository's policy.