Dart Test Fundamentals

Dart Test Fundamentals

When to use this skill

Use this skill when:

• Writing new test files.
• Structuring test suites with group.
• Configuring test execution via dart_test.yaml.
• Understanding test lifecycle methods.

Discovery

To find candidates for improving test structure:

try-finally Cleanup

Search for tests that use try-finally for cleanup instead of addTearDown:

• Regex: \bfinally\s*\{ (Check if this is used for resource cleanup

inside a test).

Core Concepts

1. Test Structure (test and group)

• test: The fundamental unit of testing.

  test('description', () {
    // assertions
  });

• group: Used to organize tests into logical blocks.
• Groups can be nested.
• Descriptions are concatenated (e.g., "Group Description Test Description").
• Helps scope setUp and tearDown calls.
• Naming: Use PascalCase for groups that correspond to a class name

(e.g., group('MyClient', ...)).

• Avoid Single Groups: Do not wrap all tests in a file with a single

group call if it's the only one.

• NOTE: DO NOT remove groups when doing a cleanup on existing code you

didn't create unless explicitly asked to. This can cause a LOT of churn

in the DIFF that most engineers won't want!

• Naming Tests test('test name here',:
• Avoid redundant "test" prefixes. Use group instead.
• Include the expected behavior or outcome in the description (e.g.,

'throws StateError' or 'adds API key to URL').

• Descriptions should read well when concatenated with their group name.

• Named Parameters Placement:
• For test and group calls, place named parameters (e.g., testOn,

timeout, skip) immediately after the description string, before the

callback closure. This improves readability by keeping the test logic last.

    test('description', testOn: 'vm', () {
      // assertions
    });

2. Lifecycle Methods (setUp, tearDown)

• setUp: Runs *before* every test in the current group (and nested

groups).

• tearDown: Runs *after* every test in the current group.
• setUpAll: Runs *once* before any test in the group.
• tearDownAll: Runs *once* after all tests in the group.

Best Practice:

• Use setUp for resetting state to ensure test isolation.
• Avoid sharing mutable state between tests without resetting it.

3. Cleaning Up Resources

• To clean up resources created WITHIN the test body, consider using

addTearDown instead of a try-finally block.

Avoid:

test('can create and delete a file', () {
  final file = File('temp.txt');
  try {
    file.writeAsStringSync('hello');
    expect(file.readAsStringSync(), 'hello');
  } finally {
    if (file.existsSync()) file.deleteSync();
  }
});

Prefer:

test('can create and delete a file', () {
  final file = File('temp.txt');
  // Register teardown immediately after resource creation intent
  addTearDown(() {
    if (file.existsSync()) file.deleteSync();
  });

  file.writeAsStringSync('hello');
  expect(file.readAsStringSync(), 'hello');
});

4. Configuration (dart_test.yaml)

The dart_test.yaml file configures the test runner. Common configurations

include:

Platforms

Define where tests run (vm, chrome, node).

platforms:
  - vm
  - chrome

Tags

Categorize tests to run specific subsets.

tags:
  integration:
    timeout: 2x

Usage in code:

@Tags(['integration'])
import 'package:test/test.dart';

Running tags:

dart test --tags integration

Timeouts

Set default timeouts for tests.

timeouts:
  2x # Double the default timeout

5. File Naming

• Test files must end in _test.dart to be picked up by the test runner.
• Place tests in the test/ directory.

Common commands

• dart test: Run all tests.
• dart test test/path/to/file_test.dart: Run a specific file.
• dart test --name "substring": Run tests matching a description.

Related Skills

dart-test-fundamentals is the core skill for structuring and configuring

tests. For writing assertions within those tests, refer to:

• [dart-matcher-best-practices]:

Use this if the project sticks with the traditional

package:matcher (expect calls).

[dart-matcher-best-practices]: https://github.com/kevmoo/dash_skills/blob/main/skills/dart-matcher-best-practices/SKILL.md