Test Health Check

Test Health Check

Produce compact PROOF that a specific test guards its stated contract — by running a few targeted fault probes around the code under test. This is not mutation testing and emits no mutation score. It answers a sharper question for active development: does this test pass on healthy behavior and reliably fail on a plausible, contract-related break?

Why coverage is not enough

A test can execute a line, or even cover an entire method, yet still fail to assert anything meaningful (a "pseudo-tested" method survives having its whole body deleted). And a test that kills mutants can still pin the wrong requirement if its oracle was copied from the implementation. So this skill verifies four independent properties:

1. Reachability — the test actually exercises the target behavior.
2. Sensitivity — the test fails under a plausible, contract-related break.
3. Oracle validity — assertions match the contract/spec/invariant, not the implementation.
4. Reliability — the result is reproducible and isolated (not flaky / order / environment dependent).

Invocation

$ARGUMENTS may contain a target and flags. The target is a test name, a test/source file, a diff/branch scope, or a described behavior. If no target is given, default to the affected cases of the current branch (see Worktree mode).

MUST rules (hard constraints)

• MUST identify the claimed test contract before probing.
• MUST establish a passing baseline first.
• MUST change only ONE behavior per probe.
• MUST keep an exact diff of every probe.
• MUST restore the repository after every probe.
• MUST verify the restored test passes.
• MUST distinguish a test failure from a build / infrastructure failure.
• MUST NOT declare a test healthy when its oracle is unclear (emit ORACLE_UNCLEAR).
• MUST NOT report a mutation score from an agent-selected sample.
• MUST NOT retain production mutations.
• MUST verify any proposed test passes on original code and fails on the relevant broken variant.

Core workflow (the fast loop)

1. Locate the test and the target code. Determine the level (unit / integration / e2e) — it changes what to probe. See references/levels.md.
2. Extract the contract. State explicitly what the test promises to verify. Source priority: (a) user-stated behavior, (b) issue / acceptance criteria / PR description, (c) public API + docs, (d) domain invariants, (e) neighboring tests, (f) production code — LAST, since an oracle copied from the implementation can lock in an existing bug. If no reliable contract can be derived → stop and report ORACLE_UNCLEAR.
3. Establish the baseline. Run the test (and, if cheap, its file/class). Record the exact command, exit code, duration, seed (if any), test count, and working-tree state. The baseline MUST be green. If it is red or flaky, stop dynamic probing and report FLAKY_OR_ORDER_DEPENDENT or surface the broken baseline — do not probe on top of a broken baseline.
4. Reachability probe. Insert a controlled sentinel (throw / fail / panic) at the target point in production code and run the test. Expect failure caused by the sentinel. If the test still passes → NOT_EXERCISING_TARGET. Restore.
5. Sensitivity probes. Introduce a few plausible, contract-specific defects — ONE behavior change per probe — and confirm the test fails for the right reason. Default set: 1 reachability
   • 2 contract-specific + 1 boundary/error probe. Pick probes from references/probes.md.
6. Restore and re-verify. After every probe, restore the exact bytes and re-run the original test to confirm it is green again. Keep the diff of each probe for the report.
7. Diagnose. Map results to one diagnosis token and list concrete gaps. See references/diagnoses.md for the full enum, when each applies, and the proof matrix.

Restore mechanism (when NOT using --worktree)

Before mutating a file, snapshot its exact bytes. After the probe, rewrite the snapshot and re-run the test to confirm green. If the file already had uncommitted changes, restore from the snapshot (not git checkout, which would discard the user's edits). Prefer --worktree to make this bulletproof.

Worktree mode + affected cases

--worktree (and the default no-target invocation) scopes probing to the tests touched by, or covering, the current branch's changes, and runs the whole cycle in a disposable git worktree — so temporary production mutations never reach the real tree, even on interruption.

Use the bundled helper scripts/worktree.sh (base branch defaults to main):

# 1. Discover affected files (branch diff vs main + staged + unstaged + untracked)
bash scripts/worktree.sh affected
bash scripts/worktree.sh tests        # same, filtered to likely test files

# 2. Create the isolated worktree (HEAD + uncommitted + untracked replayed); capture its path
WT=$(bash scripts/worktree.sh setup)

# 3. Run baseline + all probes inside "$WT" (cd into it for test + edits)

# 4. ALWAYS tear it down — even on failure
bash scripts/worktree.sh cleanup "$WT"

Rules for this mode:

• Map affected SOURCE files to their tests (by naming convention and import/reference), and include changed TEST files directly. scripts/worktree.sh tests surfaces obvious test files; do the semantic source→test mapping yourself.
• If nothing is affected, say so and stop — do NOT silently probe the whole repo.
• Always cleanup the worktree (wrap the run so cleanup happens even if a probe throws). Never leave orphaned worktrees; git worktree list should be clean afterward.
• --worktree composes with quick / focused / deep.

--fix (opt-in)

Default is diagnose-only. With --fix, propose a MINIMAL test patch that closes the proven gap, then verify all three: (a) the new/changed test passes on original code, (b) it fails on the relevant broken variant, (c) the existing suite stays green. This prevents writing a test tailored to one syntactic mutant. Never auto-apply without these three checks passing.

Output

Report the contract, the baseline, each probe with its one-line change and result (detected | survived), the diagnosis token with findings, and (if requested) the suggested test change. Use a compact structured block:

test: cancels_unpaid_order
scope: integration
contract:
  description: "Cancelling an unpaid order persists CANCELLED and issues no payment"
  confidence: high
  sources: [test name, public service contract, domain state machine]
baseline: { status: passed, command: "<cmd>", runs: 2 }
probes:
  - { id: reachability, change: "throw at OrderService.cancel", result: detected }
  - { id: remove-persistence, change: "skip repository.save", result: survived }
  - { id: invert-payment-condition, change: "initiate payment for unpaid order", result: detected }
diagnosis:
  status: WEAK_ORACLE
  findings: ["verifies returned status but not persisted state"]
suggested_test_change: ["reload the order from persistence and assert CANCELLED"]
confidence: high

State the diagnosis honestly: prefer INCONCLUSIVE or ORACLE_UNCLEAR over a false HEALTHY.

References

Read these as needed (one level deep):

• references/probes.md — the probe catalog (effect removal, decision inversion, boundary, result error, failure-path, metamorphic) with language-agnostic examples. Read when choosing probes.
• references/levels.md — unit / integration / e2e specifics, dual observation for e2e, and which diagnoses apply per level. Read when determining what to probe at a given level.
• references/diagnoses.md — the full diagnosis enum, when each applies, and the proof matrix (healthy-code vs broken-code expectations). Read when classifying the result.