mutation-testing

A guide for running Stryker mutation testing, which deliberately makes small code changes to check whether tests detect them. It explains how to interpret surviving mutations, meaning changes that the tests did not catch.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when mutation testing is explicitly requested or included in a task, currently for the CLI code. It helps interpret results and decide whether to improve tests, remove dead code, or retain an untested path for a valid reason.
Why use it?
It measures whether tests protect the code's behavior rather than only showing that lines were executed, while discouraging shallow tests added just to improve the score.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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/nerds-odd-e/doughnut/mutation-testing
Any agent
npx skills add nerds-odd-e/doughnut --skill mutation-testing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/nerds-odd-e/doughnut

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 35 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,042 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 $0.00035 $0.01042
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.00521
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00208
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00104

Measured 2d ago against content hash f732188775bb, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

mutation-testing 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.

.agents/skills/mutation-testing/SKILL.md · 116 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 116 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Purpose: Validate that unit tests exercise module logic after extract/refactor, or compare broad boundary coverage vs mutation kill rate on pure/narrow modules.

Output: Mutation run results + interpretation + summary ending with ## MUTATION TEST COMPLETE.

Current scope: cli/ only. Later: reuse in frontend/, mcp-server/.

Git does not use the Nix prefix. All other repo tooling does: CURSOR_DEV=true nix develop -c …

Policy on survived mutants: A survived mutant means no test executes that branch — or the code is dead/unreachable. Do not automatically add tests. First consider delete dead path, merge redundant logic, or prove the code is still required from product/domain behavior.

Follow always-applied .cursor/rules/unit-testing.mdc ("small test" style: stable boundary, data over mocks, focused assertions).

Do not add shallow tests that reach into inner structure, call non-entry-point helpers, or assert on internal state just to flip Stryker green.

Do add or extend coverage by driving a stable boundary (controller, mounted page, runInteractive, real CLI) with crafted preconditions so lower layers run for real. Assert only what a user or integrator can observe: HTTP response, CLI stdout, DOM, black-box inputs/outputs.

Pure helpers (inputs → result, no hidden globals) may keep direct-import black-box unit tests only when that API is the intentional stable contract.

If a good observable test is hard to compose, ask the developer whether the mutated code deserves to exist.

<success_criteria>

  • Mutation run executed with Nix prefix (cli/ scope unless extending)
  • Survived mutants interpreted per policy (no auto shallow tests)
  • Developer consulted when observable coverage is hard to compose
  • Final output includes ## MUTATION TEST COMPLETE </success_criteria>
## MUTATION TEST COMPLETE

<out_of_scope>

  • Do not run proactively without explicit developer or plan request.
  • Do not add tests that only pin internal structure to kill mutants.
  • Do not extend beyond cli/ unless following extend_to_subproject. </out_of_scope>

Read the full file on GitHub · 116 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 · 116 lines · 35 tokens per session scan A f732188775bb

Subscribe to this mod's changes

mutation-testing is a skill published in the GitHub repository nerds-odd-e/doughnut (49 stars, last pushed 2d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 35 tokens to every session and 1,042 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.

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