test-anti-patterns

What it does

Audits an existing test file or suite in any language for anti-patterns and quality issues — produces a severity-ranked report (Critical/Warning/Info). INVOKE whenever asked to audit or review tests, find what's wrong with a suite, judge whether tests are any good, or check for: tests that pass but verify nothing, missing assertions, swallowed exceptions, self-comparing / tautological assertions, coverage-touching tests, broad exceptions, flaky or order-dependent tests (Thread.Sleep, DateTime.Now, shared state), duplicated tests, or magic values — in .NET, Python/pytest, TS/Jest, Java, Go, Ruby or C++. DO NOT USE FOR: writing new tests (use code-testing-agent, or writing-mstest-tests for MSTest); running tests (use run-tests); migration; assertion-diversity metrics (use assertion-quality); the testsmells.org academic catalog (use test-smell-detection); fixing or modernizing MSTest tests, assertions, attributes, or lifecycle (use writing-mstest-tests).

How it works

• Identify language and test framework, then load a language-specific extension via the skill workflow to map anti-pattern markers.
• Gather the test code to analyze, optionally including production code for context.
• Scan each test file against the anti-pattern catalog, reporting findings grouped by severity (Critical, High, Medium, Low).
• The catalog includes patterns like no assertions, missing await on async assertions, coverage-touching, self-referential assertions, swallowed exceptions, Assert in catch, always-true assertions, commented-out assertions, flakiness indicators (sleeps, time-based reads), test ordering dependencies, over-mocking, implementation coupling, and broad exception assertions.
• Provide a calibrate-severity step to ensure findings match per-language nuance and the guidance on when issues are considered not an issue (e.g.,table-driven tests in Go/Rust, pytest bare asserts, etc.).
• Output a structured report with each finding categorized under the appropriate severity and language context.

When to use it

• User asks to review test quality or find test smells.
• User wants to know why tests are flaky or unreliable.
• User asks, "are my tests good?" or "what's wrong with my tests?".
• User requests a test audit or test code review.
• User wants to improve existing test code.

What it can touch

• The skill analyzes Test code and may reference extension files for language-specific checks. It relies on language-appropriate markers and patterns loaded via the extension file to identify anti-patterns.

Caveats

• The skill does not perform test execution or code fixes; it provides diagnostic findings and severity-based guidance only.
• It does not guarantee identification of all possible smells; results depend on the loaded language extension mappings and the provided test inputs.