tdd-anti-patterns

One-line summary

A reference catalog of test-suite anti-patterns. Each smell has a symptom you can spot, an explanation of why it's wrong, and a pointer to the TDD technique that fixes it.

When to use this skill

• Code review of test code.
• A test suite has grown ugly and someone has to triage what to fix first.
• Onboarding: explaining "we don't do X here, and here's why".
• Diagnosing CI pain (slow, flaky, hard to debug).

When NOT to use this skill

• You haven't written the tests yet — use the per-technique skills directly.
• A specific test is failing for legitimate reasons — that's debugging, not auditing.

Core content

Test interdependence. Tests pass when run alone but fail when run together. Symptom: CI fails on the test that "always passes locally". Fix: tdd-test-isolation.