test-driven-development

test-driven-development is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from MadAppGang/claude-code. It costs 42 tokens per session (4,049 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A development method in which you first write a test that fails, then write code to pass it, and finally improve the code. TDD means test-driven development.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps build functions, classes, features, API endpoints, business logic, and UI components, as well as reproduce bugs before fixing them.
Why use it?
It verifies intended behavior while code is being written and makes bug fixes and refactoring safer by preserving tests for existing behavior.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the dev plugin — 47 skills, 12 commands, 14 agents 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/madappgang/claude-code/test-driven-development
Any agent
npx skills add MadAppGang/claude-code --skill test-driven-development
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/MadAppGang/claude-code

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install dev, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 47 skills, 12 commands, 14 agents.

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 test-driven-development

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/madappgang/claude-code/test-driven-development.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/madappgang/claude-code/test-driven-development)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/madappgang/claude-code/test-driven-development"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/madappgang/claude-code/test-driven-development.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 42 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,049 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 $0.00042 $0.04049
Opus 5 $0.00021 $0.02024
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00810
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00405

Measured yesterday against content hash c3d2675e4e90, 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 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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

plugins/dev/skills/discipline/test-driven-development/SKILL.md · 535 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 535 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Test-Driven Development (TDD)

Iron Law: "NO PRODUCTION CODE WITHOUT A FAILING TEST FIRST"

When to Use

Use this skill when:

  • Writing new functions, methods, or classes
  • Adding features to existing code
  • Fixing bugs (write test that reproduces bug first)
  • Refactoring code (tests verify behavior preservation)
  • Implementing API endpoints or business logic
  • Creating UI components with testable behavior

Red Flags (Violation Indicators)

Watch for these patterns that indicate TDD violations:

  • Implementation First - Writing production code before any test exists ("I'll write the function, then add tests")
  • "Tests After" Promise - Planning to write tests later ("Let me implement this quickly, I'll add tests after")
  • "Same Purpose" Rationalization - Claiming manual testing is equivalent ("I tested it manually, that's the same thing")
  • Skipping "Simple" Code - Avoiding tests for "obvious" logic ("This function is too simple to test")
  • Happy Path Only - Writing tests only for success cases, ignoring errors ("The normal case works, that's enough")
  • No Test for Changes - Modifying code without adding corresponding test ("Just a small change, doesn't need a test")
  • "Just a Small Fix" - Bypassing TDD for "quick fixes" ("It's only one line, I don't need a test")

Violation Detection: If you find yourself saying "I'll test this after I get it working," you're violating TDD.

RED-GREEN-REFACTOR Cycle

TDD follows a strict 3-phase workflow:

Phase 1: RED (Write a Failing Test)

Objective: Specify desired behavior through a test that fails

Steps:

  1. Write the test first - Before any production code exists
  2. Define expected behavior - What should the code do?
  3. Use API you wish existed - Test the interface you want
  4. Run the test - Verify it fails (if it passes, you didn't test new behavior)
  5. Check failure reason - Ensure it fails for the right reason (missing code, not syntax error)

Read the full file on GitHub · 535 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 · 535 lines · 42 tokens per session scan A c3d2675e4e90

Subscribe to this mod's changes

test-driven-development is a skill published in the GitHub repository MadAppGang/claude-code (279 stars, last pushed 5mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 42 tokens to every session and 4,049 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 2026-09-03.

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