test-pruner

Test Pruner

Prune low-value tests in the named area. Optimize for confidence, not deletion count. Read the project's own instructions (AGENTS.md, CONTRIBUTING) first.

Junk patterns

The shared checklist for both modes: the authoring gate rejects a new test that matches one, and audits hunt for existing tests that do.

• assertion-free coverage probes;
• self-comparisons and identity copiers;
• copied fixtures, inventories, manifests, or export lists;
• exact source, import, or string greps;
• private predicate or call-shape tests duplicated at real boundaries;
• duplicate invocations of the same contract;
• provider-local replays of shared helpers;
• tests whose only purpose is preserving test-only exports, globals, or wrappers;
• dead production code whose only callers are tests;
• expected values produced by the helper or renderer under test;
• mocks that implement the asserted behavior, or one identical mock standing in for different APIs;
• fixtures that supply the receipt, admission, or callback ordering the owner should produce, or persistence asserted against a store the path never writes;
• capability tests that restate declared flags instead of exercising the delivery or acknowledgement the flag promises;
• negative controls that pass for an unrelated reason, such as a denial from a different guard or a rejection the production path never reaches;
• names or fixtures that promise more than the input exercises, such as a "retires the window" test asserting the window was not cleared.

Value bar

Tests justify their maintenance cost by protecting behavior, a credible regression, or an independently meaningful contract. In an audit, an existing test that must change for behavior-preserving source reorganization is suspect, not automatically deletable; the authoring gate still rejects new ones.

Before judging a candidate, read the complete test and production owner, its entry point, callers, callees, sibling implementations, overlapping tests, CI routing, and relevant history. Read root and scoped AGENTS.md files first. When the test claims dependency-backed behavior, inspect the dependency source or types directly.