testing

A set of Rails testing rules based on Test-Driven Development, or TDD: writing a test before the code it checks. It recommends Minitest and fixtures, which are predefined test records, instead of RSpec and factories.

In plain words
What is it for?
Planning and organizing tests for models, controllers, views, routes, jobs, validations, associations, business logic, and edge cases in a Rails application.
Why use it?
It makes tests act as both a safety check and documentation. The rules help catch regressions while keeping test data and test cases focused.

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/levifig/rails-instructions/testing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/levifig/rails-instructions

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 1,033 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 $0.01033
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00517
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00207
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00103

Measured yesterday against content hash c6ff38be3cb0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

testing 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.

.cursor/rules/rails/testing.mdc · 185 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 185 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Rails Testing Guide

Core Philosophy

  • Test-Driven Development (TDD) as default practice
  • Use Minitest and fixtures, not RSpec or factories
  • Test behavior, not implementation details
  • Keep tests fast, focused, and reliable
  • Write tests that serve as documentation

Testing Principles

  • Write tests first, then implementation
  • One assertion per test when possible
  • Test the happy path and edge cases
  • Keep test data realistic and minimal
  • Make tests independent and repeatable

Test Organization

  • Mirror app structure in test directory
  • Group related tests in the same file
  • Use descriptive test names
  • Keep test files focused and manageable
  • Organize tests by feature or behavior

Fixtures Best Practices

  • Use fixtures for test data, not factories
  • Keep fixtures simple and realistic
  • Reference fixtures by meaningful names
  • Share fixtures across related tests
  • Update fixtures when models change

Model Testing

  • Test all validations thoroughly
  • Verify associations work correctly
  • Test scopes with various data sets
  • Check business logic and calculations
  • Ensure callbacks behave properly

Controller Testing

  • Focus on HTTP concerns only
  • Test authentication and authorization
  • Verify response formats and status codes
  • Check parameter filtering
  • Test error handling scenarios

System Testing

  • Test complete user workflows
  • Use Capybara for browser automation
  • Test JavaScript interactions
  • Verify Turbo Frame updates
  • Check responsive behavior

Service Object Testing

  • Test services in complete isolation
  • Mock external dependencies
  • Verify success and failure paths
  • Test edge cases and error conditions
  • Ensure proper transaction handling

Integration Testing

  • Test API endpoints thoroughly
  • Verify request/response cycles
  • Test authentication flows
  • Check cross-controller workflows
  • Validate data consistency

Test Data Management

  • Keep test data minimal and focused
  • Use fixtures for common scenarios
  • Create data in tests for specific cases
  • Clean up after tests when needed
  • Avoid test data dependencies

Read the full file on GitHub · 185 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 · 185 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A c6ff38be3cb0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

testing is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository levifig/rails-instructions (54 stars, last pushed 1y ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,033 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 2026-08-30.