Principle Test Behavior Not Implementation Skill for Claude

Test Behavior, Not Implementation

A test calls the code the way its users do and asserts the result they observe against a literal expected value. A test that asserts which calls the code made, or restates a constant the code contains, does neither.

The check: before you keep a test, ask whether it would still pass if every function it imports returned undefined. If yes, it observes no behavior and cannot fail for a defect. Rewrite the assertion or delete the test.

Why: A test that cannot fail for a defect costs CI time and review attention and catches nothing. A constant pin also fails when someone edits the constant or the prompt it restates, so it prevents that edit.

Five shapes that still pass when every imported function returns undefined:

• Weak or no assertion. No expect, or only toBeDefined, toBeTruthy, not.toThrow, toBeInstanceOf, toBeGreaterThan(0).
• Mock or absence only. Only toHaveBeenCalled, not.toHaveBeenCalled, toBeUndefined, toEqual([]), toHaveLength(0), not.toBe(wrongValue).
• Self-referential. The expected value comes from the code under test: expect(f(a)).toBe(f(a)), expect(parsed.url).toBe(buildUrl(...)).
• Constant pin. The assertion restates a hand-maintained constant, config default, table row, or prompt string: expect(LIMITS.maxTools).toBe(8), expect(PROMPT).toContain("You are").
• Fixture asserts fixture. The assertion reads data the test built or a value computed in beforeEach, and the subject never runs inside the body.

The fix: call the subject inside the test body with one concrete input and assert the literal output or the observable effect, expect(slugify("Hello, World!")).toBe("hello-world"). For an absence, assert the presence on the other input in the same test. For a constant, test the mechanism that reads it with one input instead of restating the value. For a mock, assert the payload it received or the state after the call, not that it was called. When no such assertion exists, delete the test.

Keep a test of a relation across a table's rows (a key present in two tables, a parent that exists), and a compile-time check in a *.test-d.ts file.