bdd-with-approvals

bdd-with-approvals is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from saski/arnesto. It costs 23 tokens per session (598 once invoked), scanned A, a copy of bdd-with-approvals, Unlicense.

A way to write behavior-driven development (BDD) specifications as approval test files. BDD describes how software should behave in terms that people familiar with the business or domain can read.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to describe expected behavior before implementation, create approval files, and review whether the resulting behavior matches the specification.
Why use it?
Written specifications can drift away from the code, while ordinary tests can be difficult to review quickly. These executable files combine the expected input and output so the same artifact guides development and checks correctness.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: installed under .agents/ (shared by several agents).

Good fit Use it to describe expected behavior before implementation, create approval files, and review whether the resulting behavior matches the specification.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/saski/arnesto/bdd-with-approvals
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.

Any agent
npx skills add saski/arnesto --skill bdd-with-approvals
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/saski/arnesto

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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 bdd-with-approvals

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/saski/arnesto/bdd-with-approvals/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/saski/arnesto/bdd-with-approvals)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/saski/arnesto/bdd-with-approvals"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/saski/arnesto/bdd-with-approvals/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for bdd-with-approvals

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/saski/arnesto/bdd-with-approvals"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/saski/arnesto/bdd-with-approvals.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 23 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 598 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 100% 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 5.1 $0.00023 $0.00598
Opus 5 $0.00012 $0.00299
Sonnet 5 $0.00005 $0.00120
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00060

Measured 9d ago against content hash 8087b2d41cb3, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

bdd-with-approvals 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 9d 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

100% identical to bdd-with-approvals — 0 lines 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.

.agents/skills/bdd-with-approvals/SKILL.md · 83 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 83 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

BDD with Approval Tests

The Problem

Specifications live in documents. They drift from reality because nothing enforces them.

Tests verify implementation. Written after code, they document what IS, not what SHOULD BE. They're noisy. You can't glance at them and quickly validate correctness.

You need an artifact that:

  • Captures expected behavior before code exists
  • Stays in sync because it's executable
  • A human can validate at a glance

Executable Specifications

The fixture file IS that artifact. Write it BEFORE implementation.

Think through scenarios by creating approval files. Describe expected behavior in domain language. Implementation is driven by making these specs pass. Specs stay executable, never go stale.

A human looks at the fixture and immediately sees: correct or not. No translation between "spec" and "test". They're the same artifact.

For the approval testing technique itself (verify, scrubbers, combinations), see /approval-tests. For nulled infrastructure in system tests, see /nullables.

Approved Fixtures

Test files combining input and expected output in a format designed for human validation.

## Input
(context, parameters, initial state)

## Output
(expected results, side effects, final state)

Test runner reads fixtures, executes code, compares output. Adding test cases = adding files, not code.

Design the format for YOUR domain:

  • Grid/spatial problems → ASCII art
  • Transformations → before/after
  • Workflows → step sequences with results
  • API interactions → request/response pairs

See references/approved-fixtures.md for examples.

Format Design

The question: Can someone validate correctness in <5 seconds?

Design for human eyes, not machine parsing. Match the domain's natural representation. How you'd explain it on a whiteboard.

What makes formats scannable:

  • Columnar layouts with visual alignment
  • Consistent structure across all cases
  • Whitespace that groups related elements

Read the full file on GitHub · 83 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 9d ago First seen · 83 lines · 23 tokens per session scan A 8087b2d41cb3

Subscribe to this mod's changes

bdd-with-approvals is a skill published in the GitHub repository saski/arnesto (5 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed Unlicense. It adds 23 tokens to every session and 598 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to bdd-with-approvals, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.