Test Audit

Test Audit

Three modes, one value bar. Authoring mode gates every new or changed test at write time. Audit mode runs focused sweeps of tests that re-assert source, duplicate stronger proof, couple behavior to implementation, or keep test-only production seams alive. Continue broad audits as separate coherent follow-up PRs; optimize for confidence, not deletion count. Campaign mode prunes one whole subsystem's test surface (every test file a plugin or core area owns); before starting one, read references/campaign.md.

Authoring gate

Before adding any test, answer four questions; a missing answer means do not add it yet:

1. What observable behavior, invariant, or independent contract does it protect?
2. What credible regression makes it fail?
3. Why does existing coverage not already catch that failure? Each contract has one primary test owner at the strongest boundary; another layer needs its own distinct risk, such as a transport or lifecycle failure the owner cannot reach. Prefer extending a table-driven case or shared fixture over a near-duplicate test; consolidate duplicated setup in the same change.
4. Does it need a production seam (export, flag, wrapper, injection hook) that no production caller needs? If yes, move the test to the real boundary instead.

Then check the test against every junk pattern; a match fails the gate unless the retention bar names the contract it independently guards. A test that would break under behavior-preserving refactoring is asserting implementation, not behavior; rewrite it at the owning boundary before landing it.

Bug regression tests must fail on the pre-fix code for the intended reason and pass after the owner-boundary repair. A regression test that never demonstrably failed proves the mock, not the fix. One regression at the owner boundary covers the bug; do not replay the same scenario at every layer it crosses.

Junk patterns

The shared checklist for both modes: the authoring gate rejects a new test that matches one, and audits hunt for existing tests that do.

• assertion-free coverage probes;
• self-comparisons and identity copiers;
• copied fixtures, inventories, manifests, or export lists;
• exact source, import, or string greps;
• private predicate or call-shape tests duplicated at real boundaries;
• duplicate invocations of the same contract;
• provider-local replays of shared helpers;
• tests whose only purpose is preserving test-only exports, globals, or wrappers;
• dead production code whose only callers are tests;
• expected values produced by the helper or renderer under test;
• mocks that implement the asserted behavior, or one identical mock standing in for different APIs;
• fixtures that supply the receipt, admission, or callback ordering the owner should produce, or persistence asserted against a store the path never writes;
• capability tests that restate declared flags instead of exercising the delivery or acknowledgement the flag promises;
• negative controls that pass for an unrelated reason, such as a denial from a different guard or a rejection the production path never reaches;
• names or fixtures that promise more than the input exercises, such as a "retires the window" test asserting the window was not cleared.

Value bar

Tests justify their maintenance cost by protecting behavior, a credible regression, or an independently meaningful contract. In an audit, an existing test that must change for behavior-preserving source reorganization is suspect, not automatically deletable; the authoring gate still rejects new ones.

Before judging a candidate, read the complete test and production owner, its entry point, callers, callees, sibling implementations, overlapping tests, CI routing, and relevant history. Read root and scoped AGENTS.md files first. When the test claims dependency-backed behavior, inspect the dependency source or types directly.

Discovery

Keep discovery read-only and report evidence before editing. For broad scope, run parallel discovery lanes when available:

• core source and packages;
• plugins or extensions;
• UI, apps, scripts, and tooling;
• a cross-cutting pattern sweep.

Outside campaign mode, prefer a few high-confidence candidates over a large speculative inventory. Hunt for the junk patterns.