Tdd Workflow

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

The Loop

One cycle, three states, in this order and no other:

1. Red — write one failing test that states the next increment of desired behaviour. Run it. Confirm it fails, and fails for the reason you expect.
2. Green — write the simplest change that makes it pass. Not the best change; the simplest. Run the whole suite.
3. Refactor — improve the code and the test with the suite green. Run after every structural change. Never change behaviour here.

The cycle is short by design: minutes, not hours. A long cycle means the increment was too large — shrink it.

Why Red Must Be Observed

A test that has never failed proves nothing. It may assert a tautology, target the wrong unit, or be silently skipped. Watching it fail, and reading the failure message, is the only evidence that the test is connected to the behaviour you intend to build.

The Increment

Each cycle should encode exactly one decision: one branch, one validation, one edge case. If you cannot state the next test in a sentence, the increment is too big.

Characterisation Tests

For untested legacy code, invert the loop. You do not know the intended behaviour, so first pin down the actual behaviour with tests that assert what the code does today — bugs included. Only then change it. These tests are scaffolding: some are deleted once the real behaviour is specified.

The Workflow

1. Establish the baseline

Run the suite before touching anything. A suite that is already red gives you no signal. Fix or quarantine failures first, and say so.

npm test          # or: pytest -q, go test ./..., cargo test, mvn -q test

2. Name the increment

State the next behaviour in one sentence, in the domain's language. That sentence becomes the test name.

"A refund larger than the original charge is rejected."

3. Write the failing test

One test. Arrange, act, assert. Assert on observable behaviour — a return value, a raised error, a recorded side effect — never on private internals.

def test_refund_larger_than_charge_is_rejected():
    payment = Payment(amount=Decimal("50.00"))

    with pytest.raises(RefundExceedsCharge):
        refund(payment, amount=Decimal("75.00"))

4. Run it and read the failure

pytest -q tests/test_refunds.py::test_refund_larger_than_charge_is_rejected

Confirm it fails because RefundExceedsCharge was not raised — not because of an import error, a typo, or a missing fixture. A test failing for the wrong reason is not red; it is broken.

5. Make it pass, simply

def refund(payment, amount):
    if amount > payment.amount:
        raise RefundExceedsCharge(payment.id, amount)
    ...

Resist generalising. A hard-coded value that passes is legitimate here; the next failing test will force the generalisation. Run the whole suite, not just the new test — the simplest change is also the one most likely to break a neighbour.

6. Refactor

With the suite green, improve naming, remove duplication, extract functions. Refactor the test too: a test that is hard to read is a test that will be deleted rather than fixed. Run the suite after each structural change so a break is attributable to one edit.

7. Repeat or stop

Return to step 2 for the next increment. Stop when the behaviour is fully specified — not when the code looks finished.

Working on Untested Legacy Code

Do not start by writing the test you wish existed. Start by making the code testable at its current seam:

1. Find the smallest boundary you can call — a function, an HTTP handler, a CLI entry point. Do not refactor to find it; call what exists.
2. Write a characterisation test asserting current output for a realistic input. If the output is a large structure, snapshot it.
3. Run it. If it fails, your understanding is wrong, not the code — fix the test.
4. Repeat until the paths you intend to change are covered.
5. Only now begin the red-green-refactor loop on the change you actually wanted.

See Legacy Code Strategies for seam techniques, dependency breaking, and snapshot hygiene.

Best Practices

• One assertion of intent per test. Multiple assert lines are fine when they describe one behaviour; two behaviours belong in two tests.
• Name tests after behaviour, not implementation. rejects_refund_above_charge survives a rewrite; test_refund_method_branch_2 does not.
• Keep the loop fast. If the suite takes minutes, run a focused subset during the loop and the full suite before each commit.
• Let the test drive the interface. Difficulty writing the test is design feedback: it usually means too many dependencies or hidden state.
• Commit at green. Each cycle that ends green is a safe point to commit.
• Delete tests that no longer earn their place. Coverage of deleted behaviour is noise.

Anti-Patterns

Writing the test after the code

The test then encodes what the code does, not what it should do. It passes immediately, was never observed failing, and provides no design pressure. If the code is already written, use a characterisation test and say so — do not pretend it was test-first.

Testing implementation details

Asserting on private methods, call counts, or internal state couples the test to the current implementation. Every refactor breaks the suite, so the suite gets weakened or deleted.

Over-mocking

Mocking everything the unit touches produces a test that verifies the mocks. Mock at genuine boundaries — network, clock, filesystem, payment provider — and use real objects inside the unit.

Skipping refactor

Green then straight to the next test accumulates duplication until the design collapses. The refactor step is where TDD pays for itself.

Chasing a coverage number

Coverage measures lines executed, not behaviour specified. A suite at 95 % that asserts nothing meaningful is worse than 60 % of sharp tests, because it buys false confidence.

One giant cycle

Writing ten failing tests then making them all pass is not TDD; it is test-first-then-a-long-debug. Keep the loop at one test.

Reference Documentation

• Legacy Code Strategies — seams, dependency breaking, characterisation and snapshot tests
• Worked Examples — full cycles in TypeScript, Python and Go, including a bug-fix cycle

Resources

• Kent Beck, Test-Driven Development: By Example — the original loop
• Michael Feathers, Working Effectively with Legacy Code — seams and characterisation tests
• Steve Freeman & Nat Pryce, Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests
• Martin Fowler, Test Pyramid
• Martin Fowler, Mocks Aren't Stubs