test-driven-development

A software development method that writes a failing test before the code that should pass it. TDD, or test-driven development, uses tests to check that new and changed behavior works.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when adding logic, fixing bugs, changing behavior, or handling edge cases. It is generally unnecessary for changes that cannot affect behavior, such as documentation.
Why use it?
It gives bug fixes and feature changes a repeatable proof of correctness and helps reveal when existing behavior has been broken.

Skill for Claude CodeCodexCursor

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

Made for: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.

Per session 50 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,729 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 98% copy Near-identical to another mod 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 $0.00050 $0.03729
Opus 5 $0.00025 $0.01865
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00746
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00373

Measured 2d ago against content hash a65ec1f2cc60, 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.

Origin

This is a copy

98% identical to test-driven-development — 1 line differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

home/.cursor/skills/test-driven-development/SKILL.md · 400 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 400 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Test-Driven Development

Overview

Write a failing test before writing the code that makes it pass. For bug fixes, reproduce the bug with a test before attempting a fix. Tests are proof — "seems right" is not done. A codebase with good tests is an AI agent's superpower; a codebase without tests is a liability.

When to Use

  • Implementing any new logic or behavior
  • Fixing any bug (the Prove-It Pattern)
  • Modifying existing functionality
  • Adding edge case handling
  • Any change that could break existing behavior

When NOT to use: Pure configuration changes, documentation updates, or static content changes that have no behavioral impact.

Related: For browser-based changes, combine TDD with runtime verification using Chrome DevTools MCP — see the Browser Testing section below.

Discover the Stack First

The TDD cycle is universal; the commands are not. Before writing the first test, discover how this repository tests, and use its commands for every RED, GREEN, and verification step:

  • Language and build systempackage.json, pom.xml/build.gradle, pyproject.toml, go.mod, Cargo.toml, Gemfile, a Makefile
  • Checked-in wrappers — prefer ./gradlew, ./mvnw, make test, or a repo script over globally installed tools
  • Test framework and configuration — and how it runs a single focused test vs the full suite
  • Existing conventions — where tests live, how files are named, what patterns neighboring tests follow
  • Documented commands — README, CONTRIBUTING, and CI workflows show the commands that actually gate merges

Run the repository's focused-test command during the loop and its full-suite command before completion. Never assume a default like npm test — a Gradle, Cargo, or pytest project has its own equivalent.

The examples below use TypeScript for illustration; the workflow is identical in any language once you've discovered the project's own tooling.

The TDD Cycle

    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

Read the full file on GitHub · 400 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 · 400 lines · 50 tokens per session scan A a65ec1f2cc60

Subscribe to this mod's changes

test-driven-development is a skill published in the GitHub repository mamahoos/dot-files (3 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 50 tokens to every session and 3,729 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 98% identical to test-driven-development, differing in 1 line, and is treated as a copy.

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