unit-testing

Guidelines for writing automated tests as either end-to-end tests, which check the complete system, or unit tests, which check a small part in the same process. They define a small-test style that tests real production code at a stable interface.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to choose test boundaries, create realistic test data, mock only outside services, and test public interfaces such as controllers, commands, components, or MCP tools.
Why use it?
It avoids tests that are slow, overly dependent on internal implementation details, or difficult to maintain.

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/nerds-odd-e/doughnut/unit-testing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nerds-odd-e/doughnut

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 1,343 This file is loaded in full into every session.
When invoked 1,343 The same file — it is already loaded in full.
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 $0.01343 $0.01343
Opus 5 $0.00672 $0.00672
Sonnet 5 $0.00269 $0.00269
Haiku 4.5 $0.00134 $0.00134

Measured 2d ago against content hash aa1e23b7609f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

unit-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 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/unit-testing.mdc · 83 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 83 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

"Small test" style

This repo’s automated tests are E2E or unit tests — nothing in between. Write unit tests in the "small test" style below.

A "small test" means: a fast, in-process unit test (JUnit, Vitest, Bach, …) that drives a stable boundary with crafted data/makeMe, exercises real lower-level production code, and mocks only external dependencies. Stack commands, entry points, and tooling stay in the package rules (frontend.mdc / frontend-testing.mdc, backend.mdc / backend-testing.mdc, cli.mdc, mcp-server.mdc).

Stable boundary

  • Drive the outermost (or domain-stable) interface. Prefer the public surface under test — e.g. a controller, mounted component, CLI run / runInteractive, MCP tool — or an interface that is itself a deliberate, domain-stable contract (pure algorithm, validation API). Do not add a test class per internal production class, and do not widen exports only so tests can reach helpers.
  • Cover lower layers with data, not with more test surfaces. Craft realistic, scenario-specific preconditions and fixtures so one boundary test exercises the real lower-level production routines. Prefer that over isolating each collaborator behind mocks or thin wrapper tests.
  • Build those fixtures with makeMe — keep construction concise (see below).
  • Do not mock unless external or exceptional. Mock only true external dependencies (third-party APIs, network services, and the like) or extremely rare special cases. Package rules name the allowed exceptions (OpenAIClient, frontend mockSdkService for the backend HTTP API, CLI spies on donut-api, etc.). Prefer the real database, real in-process collaborators, and real browser rendering inside the system under test.

Focused assertions

  • One behavior per test. Assert only what this scenario uniquely establishes.
  • Canonical shape once. Shared post-conditions belong in one test. Sibling scenarios assert only their delta.
  • Different precondition ≠ re-assert unrelated post-condition. If outcome X is clearly independent of what changed in the setup, do not repeat X.
  • Prefer asserting the positive signal over “not the other message/alert” when the positive already distinguishes the case.
  • In loops (thresholds, retries, frame polls), assert the loop result, not the same intermediate outcome every iteration.

Read the full file on GitHub · 83 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. 2d ago First seen · 83 lines · 1,343 tokens per session scan A aa1e23b7609f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

unit-testing is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository nerds-odd-e/doughnut (49 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 1,343 tokens to every session, about $0.0067 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.