tdd-workflow

Rules for test-first development, commonly called TDD, where you write a failing test, add the smallest code that passes it, and then clean up the code.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use them when changing runtime behavior to guide the Red-Green-Refactor cycle and document why TDD was skipped for an eligible small change.
Why use it?
They make expected behavior explicit before implementation and allow only narrowly defined exceptions for trivial changes.

Cursor rule for Cursor

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 rules/goranerhartic/cursor-development-rules/tdd-workflow
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/GoranErhartic/cursor-development-rules

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 21 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 279 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 $0.00021 $0.00279
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.00139
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00056
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00028

Measured 2d ago against content hash 96dad452cd6b, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

tdd-workflow 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 2d ago.

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.

.cursor/rules/development/tdd-workflow.mdc · 32 lines

What it actually says

TDD Workflow

Test-First Development is the default approach.

  1. RED - Write a failing test that defines expected behavior
  2. GREEN - Write minimal code to make the test pass
  3. REFACTOR - Clean up while keeping tests green

Escape Clause (Trivial Changes Only)

TDD may be skipped only when all of these are true:

  • The change is non-behavioral (formatting, comments, renames, docs)
  • Or the change is configuration-only (no runtime logic change)
  • Or the change is a one-line mechanical fix with no branch/flow impact
  • Existing tests already cover the touched behavior

When skipping TDD, document the exact reason in the summary.

Terminology

  • Trivial change: A change that does not alter runtime behavior
  • Non-trivial change: Any behavioral change, new branch, new condition, or side effect

See also: development/code-implementation.mdc, patterns/testing.mdc, development/tdd-planning.mdc

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. 2d ago First seen · 32 lines · 21 tokens per session scan A 96dad452cd6b

Subscribe to this mod's changes

tdd-workflow is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository GoranErhartic/cursor-development-rules (19 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 21 tokens to every session and 279 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. 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 2026-08-30.