cts

Adding or Editing Test Plans

1. Write a test plan

For new tests, if some notes exist already, incorporate them into your plan.

A detailed test plan should be written and reviewed before substantial test code is written. This allows reviewers a chance to identify additional tests and cases, opportunities for generalizations that would improve the strength of tests, similar existing tests or test plans, and potentially useful helpers.

A test plan must serve two functions:

There should be one test plan for each test. It should describe what it tests, how, and describe important cases that need to be covered. Here’s an example:

g.test('x,some_detail')
  .desc(
    `
Tests [some detail] about x. Tests calling x in various 'mode's { mode1, mode2 },
with various values of 'arg', and checks correctness of the result.
Tries to trigger [some conditional path].

- Valid values (control case) // <- (to make sure the test function works well)
- Unaligned values (should fail) // <- (only validation tests need to intentionally hit invalid cases)
- Extreme values`
  )
  .params(u =>
    u //
      .combine('mode', ['mode1', 'mode2'])
      .beginSubcases()
      .combine('arg', [
        // Valid  // <- Comment params as you see fit.
        4,
        8,
        100,
        // Invalid
        2,
        6,
        1e30,
      ])
  )
  .unimplemented();

“Cases” each appear as individual items in the /standalone/ runner. “Subcases” run inside each case, like a for-loop wrapping the .fn(test function). Documentation on the parameter builder can be found in the helper index.

It’s often impossible to predict the exact case/subcase structure before implementing tests, so they can be added during implementation, instead of planning.

For any notes which are not specific to a single test, or for preliminary notes for tests that haven’t been planned in full detail, put them in the test file’s description variable at the top. Or, if they aren’t associated with a test file, put them in a README.txt file.

Any notes about missing test coverage must be marked with the word TODO inside a description or README. This makes them appear on the /standalone/ page.

2. Open a pull request

Open a PR, and work with the reviewer(s) to revise the test plan.

Usually (probably), plans will be landed in separate PRs before test implementations.

Conventions used in test plans