test-driven-development

A development method where you write a test that fails, add the smallest amount of code to pass it, and then clean up the code while keeping the test passing. Tests are checks that show whether code behaves as expected.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when adding logic, changing behavior, fixing bugs, or handling edge cases. It is not intended for documentation or configuration-only changes.
Why use it?
It replaces guesswork with evidence and helps prevent bugs or accidental changes to existing behavior. For a bug, the test first reproduces the problem so the fix can be checked.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the agent-skills plugin — 20 skills, 7 commands, 3 agents, 1 hook shipped together

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 skills/233i/agent-skills/test-driven-development
Any agent
npx skills add 233i/agent-skills --skill test-driven-development
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/233i/agent-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install agent-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 20 skills, 7 commands, 3 agents, 1 hook.

Per session 54 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,618 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 $0.00054 $0.03618
Opus 5 $0.00027 $0.01809
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00724
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00362

Measured 2d ago against content hash 27ac8e9fc3d4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

test-driven-development 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.

skills/test-driven-development/SKILL.md · 376 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 376 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

测试驱动开发

概览

在写让它通过的代码之前,先写一个失败的测试。对 bug 修复来说,也是在尝试修复前先用测试复现 bug。测试就是证据,“看起来对”不算完成。有高质量测试的代码库,是 AI agent 的超能力;没有测试的代码库,则是一种负担。

何时使用

  • 实现任何新的逻辑或行为
  • 修复任何 bug,也就是 Prove-It Pattern
  • 修改现有功能
  • 增加边界情况处理
  • 任何可能破坏现有行为的改动

不适用的场景: 纯配置改动、文档更新,或不会影响行为的静态内容修改。

相关 skill: 对浏览器端改动,应把 TDD 和 Chrome DevTools MCP 的运行时验证结合起来,见下方 Browser Testing 部分。

TDD 循环

    RED                GREEN              REFACTOR
 Write a test    Write minimal code    Clean up the
 that fails  ──→  to make it pass  ──→  implementation  ──→  (repeat)
      │                  │                    │
      ▼                  ▼                    ▼
   Test FAILS        Test PASSES         Tests still PASS

步骤 1:RED,先写一个失败测试

先写测试,而且它必须失败。一个一开始就通过的测试,证明不了任何事情。

// RED: This test fails because createTask doesn't exist yet
describe('TaskService', () => {
  it('creates a task with title and default status', async () => {
    const task = await taskService.createTask({ title: 'Buy groceries' });

    expect(task.id).toBeDefined();
    expect(task.title).toBe('Buy groceries');
    expect(task.status).toBe('pending');
    expect(task.createdAt).toBeInstanceOf(Date);
  });
});

步骤 2:GREEN,让它刚好通过

写出能让测试通过的最少代码,不要过度设计:

// GREEN: Minimal implementation
export async function createTask(input: { title: string }): Promise<Task> {
  const task = {
    id: generateId(),
    title: input.title,
    status: 'pending' as const,
    createdAt: new Date(),
  };
  await db.tasks.insert(task);
  return task;
}

步骤 3:REFACTOR,整理实现

当测试已经是绿色时,再在不改变行为的前提下优化代码:

  • 提取共享逻辑
  • 改善命名
  • 去重
  • 必要时做性能优化

每做一步重构,都重新跑测试,确认没有破坏行为。

举证模式(Prove-It Pattern,Bug 修复)

当收到 bug 报告时,不要一上来就修。 先写一个能复现它的测试。

Bug report arrives
       │
       ▼
  Write a test that demonstrates the bug
       │
       ▼
  Test FAILS (confirming the bug exists)
       │
       ▼
  Implement the fix
       │
       ▼
  Test PASSES (proving the fix works)
       │
       ▼
  Run full test suite (no regressions)

Read the full file on GitHub · 376 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 · 376 lines · 54 tokens per session scan A 27ac8e9fc3d4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

test-driven-development is a skill published in the GitHub repository 233i/agent-skills (6 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 54 tokens to every session and 3,618 once invoked, about $0.0003 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 2026-08-31.

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