Go Testing Best Practices Guide

v20260906

go-testing

This skill provides a comprehensive guide to advanced testing patterns in Go. It covers everything from basic unit tests (like table-driven testing) to complex state management in TUI applications (Bubbletea/teatest), and deterministic testing using golden files. Use this when writing, reviewing, or improving Go test coverage to ensure reliable and focused testing.

Go Testing Unit Integration Bubbletea TUI Best Practices

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Overview

Activation Contract

Load this skill when writing or reviewing Go tests, adding coverage, testing Bubbletea/TUI flows, using teatest, or updating golden files.

Hard Rules

Prefer table-driven tests for multiple cases; use t.Run(tt.name, ...).
Test behavior and state transitions, not implementation trivia.
Use t.TempDir() for filesystem tests; never rely on a real home directory.
Keep integration tests skippable with testing.Short() when they run external commands or slow flows.
For Bubbletea, test Model.Update() directly for state changes; use teatest only for interactive flows.
Golden files must be deterministic; update only through the repo's -update path and rerun tests without -update.
Use small mocks/interfaces around system or command execution boundaries.

Decision Gates

Target	Test pattern
Pure function or parser	Table-driven unit test.
Error behavior	Explicit success and failure cases.
File operations	`t.TempDir()` plus focused assertions.
TUI state transition	Direct `Model.Update()` call with `tea.Msg`.
Full TUI interaction	`teatest.NewTestModel()`.
Rendered output	Golden file test.
Real external command	Integration test; skip in `-short`.

Execution Steps

Identify behavior under test and the smallest public boundary that proves it.
Choose the test pattern from the decision gate.
Name cases by scenario, not input mechanics.
Assert outputs, errors, state, and side effects explicitly.
Run the narrow package test first, then the relevant broader suite.
For golden updates: run with -update, inspect diff, then rerun without -update.

Output Contract

Report test files changed, scenarios covered, commands executed, golden files updated, and any skipped integration scope.

References

references/examples.md — compact table-driven, Bubbletea, teatest, golden, and command examples.

Info

Category Development

Name go-testing

Version v20260906

Size 2.13KB

Source Gentleman-Programming/gentle-ai

Updated At 2026-09-07