What is php-testing-patterns?

A set of patterns for testing PHP code with PHPUnit, WordPress, and WooCommerce. It also covers Brain Monkey, a tool for isolating parts of WordPress code during tests.

Use it when writing or reviewing PHP tests for plugins, themes, WordPress sites, or WooCommerce stores.

It helps you write consistent tests and choose suitable assertions, test data, mocks, and naming practices. This reduces fragile tests that break when implementation details change.

php-testing-patterns — Skill for Claude Code by vladolaru

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 vladolaru/claude-code-plugins --skill php-testing-patterns

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/vladolaru/claude-code-plugins

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install pirategoat-tools, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 22 skills.

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.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/vladolaru/claude-code-plugins/php-testing-patterns/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/vladolaru/claude-code-plugins/php-testing-patterns)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/vladolaru/claude-code-plugins/php-testing-patterns"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/vladolaru/claude-code-plugins/php-testing-patterns/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.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/vladolaru/claude-code-plugins/php-testing-patterns"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/vladolaru/claude-code-plugins/php-testing-patterns.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 39 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.

When invoked 904 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 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.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.00039	$0.00904
Opus 5.5	$0.00016	$0.00362
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00008	$0.00181
Haiku 4.5	$0.00004	$0.00090

Measured 2mo ago against content hash 0b925754e935, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

php-testing-patterns 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 2mo 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.

plugins/pirategoat-tools/skills/php-testing-patterns/SKILL.md · 61 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 61 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Skill Directory

Resolve SKILL_DIR to the absolute directory containing this SKILL.md, as shown by the current host, before using any bundled path below. Before a shell command uses $SKILL_DIR, assign it in that command or replace it with the resolved path. It is not a host-exported environment variable.

PHP Testing Patterns

PHPUnit, WordPress, and WooCommerce testing patterns. For shared test quality principles (philosophy, smells, mocking decisions), see testing-patterns.

Reference Routing

Need	Reference File	Sections to Read
PHPUnit + WordPress + WooCommerce patterns	`$SKILL_DIR/../testing-patterns/references/phpunit-patterns.md`	Full file (~422L, manageable)
Behavior vs implementation	`$SKILL_DIR/../testing-patterns/references/test-philosophy.md`	`## The Fundamental Shift` + `## Four Core Principles`
Flaky/brittle tests	`$SKILL_DIR/../testing-patterns/references/test-smells.md`	`## The Six Major Test Smells` (relevant subsection)
Mock usage decisions	`$SKILL_DIR/../testing-patterns/references/mocking-strategies.md`	`## The Mocking Decision Framework`
AAA pattern/naming	`$SKILL_DIR/../testing-patterns/references/test-structure.md`	`## The AAA Pattern` + `## Test Naming Conventions`
Test data strategy	`$SKILL_DIR/../testing-patterns/references/test-data.md`	`## Factories` + `## Builders`

How to read sections: Grep for heading to find line number, Read with offset+limit.

PHP Assertion Quick Reference

Use	Instead Of	Why
`assertSame($expected, $actual)`	`assertEquals()`	Strict type comparison — `assertEquals('1', 1)` passes silently
`assertCount(3, $items)`	`assertSame(3, count($items))`	Better failure messages
`assertInstanceOf(Foo::class, $obj)`	`assertTrue($obj instanceof Foo)`	Better failure messages
`assertStringContainsString()`	`assertTrue(strpos(...) !== false)`	Readable, descriptive
`@dataProvider`	Duplicated test methods	DRY, parameterized, each case is a named data set
`$this->factory->post->create()`	`wp_insert_post()`	WordPress factory handles cleanup
`expectException(E::class)`	`try/catch` + `fail()`	PHPUnit native exception testing

Read the full file on GitHub · 61 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.

2mo ago First seen · 61 lines · 39 tokens per session scan A 0b925754e935

Subscribe to this mod's changes

php-testing-patterns is a skill published in the GitHub repository vladolaru/claude-code-plugins (8 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 39 tokens to every session and 904 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5.5. 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.

Languages PHP Testing Unit testing

php-testing-patterns next to 6 skills from other repositories
Mod	Type	Stars	Last push	Licence	Scan	Tokens	Works with
php-testing-patternsvladolaru/claude-code-plugins	Skill	8	5d ago	MIT	A	39	Claude Code
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phpunit-unit-test-reviewingshopwareLabs/ai-coding-tools	Skill	45	2d ago	MIT	A	31	Claude Code
phpunit-unit-test-writingshopwareLabs/ai-coding-tools	Skill	45	2d ago	MIT	A	187	Claude Code
noerd-testingnoerd-dev/noerd	Skill	17	3d ago	MIT	A	121	Claude Code, Codex
php-testingfusengine/agents	Skill	34	29d ago	MIT	A	38	Claude Code