builders

A guide to test data builders, which are reusable helpers for creating test objects with less setup code.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them to simplify repeated test fixtures, such as tasks, nodes, or mind maps, while keeping each test's purpose clear.
Why use it?
They make tests easier to read when objects are nested, verbose, or repeated with small variations.

Command

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/romilly/claude-code-helpers/builders
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/romilly/claude-code-helpers
Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 1,101 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.01101
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00550
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00220
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00110

Measured yesterday against content hash e0867e60c488, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

builders scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

resources/commands/builders.md · 170 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 170 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Test Data Builders Guide

When to Create Builders

Create test data builders when:

  • Verbose setup code - Tests have multi-line object construction that obscures intent
  • Nested hierarchies - Objects contain other objects several levels deep
  • Repeated boilerplate - Same structure appears across many tests with small variations

Don't create builders for simple dataclasses with 2-3 fields.

Spotting Opportunities

Test smell: Deeply nested construction that buries the test's intent:

# Before - 12 lines to set up one task
mm = MindMap(root=Node(
    id="ID_ROOT", title="Project",
    children=[Node(id="ID_TASKS", title="tasks", children=[
        Node(id="ID_LANE", title="Team", children=[
            Node(id="ID_1", title="Task A"),
        ])
    ])]
))

# After - intent is clear
mm = simple_mindmap(task("ID_1", "Task A"))

The Pattern

1. Builder Class with Fluent API

class NodeBuilder:
    """Fluent builder for Node objects."""

    def __init__(self, id: str, title: str):
        self._id = id
        self._title = title
        self._description: str | None = None
        self._children: list[Node] = []

    def with_description(self, description: str) -> "NodeBuilder":
        self._description = description
        return self

    def with_children(self, *children: "NodeBuilder | Node") -> "NodeBuilder":
        for child in children:
            if isinstance(child, NodeBuilder):
                self._children.append(child.build())
            else:
                self._children.append(child)
        return self

    def build(self) -> Node:
        return Node(
            id=self._id,
            title=self._title,
            description=self._description,
            children=self._children,
        )

2. Factory Function (Entry Point)

def task(id: str, title: str) -> NodeBuilder:
    """Factory to start building a task node."""
    return NodeBuilder(id, title)

3. Convenience Function for Common Cases

Read the full file on GitHub · 170 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 170 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A e0867e60c488

Subscribe to this mod's changes

builders is a command published in the GitHub repository romilly/claude-code-helpers (2 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,101 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.