implement-with-tdd

implement-with-tdd is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from Codagent-AI/agent-skills. It costs 46 tokens per session (2,290 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A development rule set for test-driven development (TDD), a method where you write a test first, confirm it fails, then write the code that makes it pass.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for new features, bug fixes, refactoring, and other behavior changes where tests should guide the implementation.
Why use it?
It prevents production code from being written without a test that demonstrates the required behavior and helps keep feature, bug-fix, and refactoring work verifiable.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the codagent plugin — 27 skills 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/codagent-ai/agent-skills/implement-with-tdd
Any agent
npx skills add Codagent-AI/agent-skills --skill implement-with-tdd
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Codagent-AI/agent-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install codagent, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 27 skills.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for implement-with-tdd

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/codagent-ai/agent-skills/implement-with-tdd.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/codagent-ai/agent-skills/implement-with-tdd)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/codagent-ai/agent-skills/implement-with-tdd"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/codagent-ai/agent-skills/implement-with-tdd.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 46 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,290 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 $0.00046 $0.02290
Opus 5 $0.00023 $0.01145
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00458
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00229

Measured 5d ago against content hash e500c686033a, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

implement-with-tdd 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 5d 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/implement-with-tdd/SKILL.md · 320 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 320 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Test-Driven Development (TDD)

Overview

Write the test first. Watch it fail. Write minimal code to pass.

Core principle: Watch the test fail. Only then is it proven to test the right thing.

Violating the letter of the rules is violating the spirit of the rules.

When to Use

Always:

  • New features
  • Bug fixes
  • Refactoring
  • Behavior changes

Exceptions (skip TDD only for these; otherwise follow the full TDD cycle):

  • Throwaway spikes that will never be merged (branch must be deleted before implementation begins; any code carried forward requires full TDD)
  • Generated code (scaffolded, not behavior-bearing)
  • Configuration-only changes

Thinking "skip TDD just this once"? Stop. That's rationalization.

The Iron Law

NO PRODUCTION CODE WITHOUT A FAILING TEST FIRST

Write code before the test? Delete it. Start over.

No exceptions:

  • Don't keep it as "reference"
  • Don't "adapt" it while writing tests
  • Don't look at it
  • Delete means delete

Implement fresh from tests. Period.

Choosing Test Type

Honor any integration or E2E coverage explicitly required by the task's supplied requirements or test plan. For behavior without a higher-layer requirement, prove it at the lowest layer that can adequately detect the relevant failure:

  • Unit — pure logic, validation, transformations, calculations. No I/O, no wiring. Fast (<100ms).
  • Integration — components wired together: database queries, middleware chains, API clients, config reaching runtime. If the bug would only manifest when components connect, it needs an integration test.
  • E2E — critical user flows only (login, checkout, onboarding). Expensive, slow, flaky-prone. Don't use for logic that can be tested at a lower level.

Do not substitute a unit test for required integration or E2E coverage, and do not duplicate the same assertion at multiple layers without a distinct risk. When implementation tasks are supplied, keep each automated obligation in the same task as the behavior it protects.

Read the full file on GitHub · 320 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. 5d ago First seen · 320 lines · 46 tokens per session scan A e500c686033a

Subscribe to this mod's changes

implement-with-tdd is a skill published in the GitHub repository Codagent-AI/agent-skills (30 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 46 tokens to every session and 2,290 once invoked, about $0.0002 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.