beads/docs/TESTING.md

Testing Guide

Overview

The beads project has a comprehensive test suite with ~41,000 lines of code across 205 files in cmd/bd alone.

Test Performance

• Total test time: ~3 minutes (excluding broken tests)
• Package count: 20+ packages with tests
• Compilation overhead: ~180 seconds (most of the total time)
• Individual test time: Only ~3.8 seconds combined for all 313 tests in cmd/bd

Running Tests

Quick Start

# Run all tests (auto-skips known broken tests)
make test

# Or directly:
./scripts/test.sh

# Run specific package
./scripts/test.sh ./cmd/bd/...

# Run specific test pattern
./scripts/test.sh -run TestCreate ./cmd/bd/...

# Verbose output
./scripts/test.sh -v

Environment Variables

# Set custom timeout (default: 3m)
TEST_TIMEOUT=5m ./scripts/test.sh

# Enable verbose output
TEST_VERBOSE=1 ./scripts/test.sh

# Run specific pattern
TEST_RUN=TestCreate ./scripts/test.sh

Advanced Usage

# Skip additional tests beyond .test-skip
./scripts/test.sh -skip SomeSlowTest

# Run with custom timeout
./scripts/test.sh -timeout 5m

# Combine flags
./scripts/test.sh -v -run TestCreate ./internal/beads/...

Known Broken Tests

Tests in .test-skip are automatically skipped. Current broken tests:

1. TestFallbackToDirectModeEnablesFlush (GH #355)

   • Location: cmd/bd/direct_mode_test.go:14
   • Issue: Database deadlock, hangs for 5 minutes
   • Impact: Makes test suite extremely slow

2. TestFindJSONLPathDefault (GH #356)

   • Location: internal/beads/beads_test.go:175
   • Issue: Expects issues.jsonl but code returns beads.jsonl
   • Impact: Assertion failure

For Claude Code / AI Agents

When running tests during development:

Best Practices

1. Use the test script: Always use ./scripts/test.sh instead of go test directly

   • Automatically skips known broken tests
   • Uses appropriate timeouts
   • Consistent with CI/CD

2. Target specific tests when possible:

   # Instead of running everything:
   ./scripts/test.sh
   
   # Run just what you changed:
   ./scripts/test.sh -run TestSpecificFeature ./cmd/bd/...
   

3. Compilation is the bottleneck:

   • The 180-second compilation time dominates
   • Individual tests are fast
   • Use -run to avoid recompiling unnecessarily

4. Check for new failures:

   # If you see a new failure, check if it's known:
   cat .test-skip
   

Adding Tests to Skip List

If you discover a broken test:

1. File a GitHub issue documenting the problem
2. Add to .test-skip:

   # Issue #NNN: Brief description
   TestNameToSkip
   

3. Tests in .test-skip support regex patterns

Test Organization

Slowest Tests (>0.05s)

The top slow tests in cmd/bd:

• TestDoctorWithBeadsDir (1.68s) - Only significantly slow test
• TestFlushManagerDebouncing (0.21s)
• TestDebouncer_* tests (0.06-0.12s each) - Intentional sleeps for concurrency testing
• TestMultiWorkspaceDeletionSync (0.12s)

Most tests are <0.01s and very fast.

Package Structure

cmd/bd/           - Main CLI tests (82 test files, most of the suite)
internal/beads/   - Core beads library tests
internal/storage/ - Storage backend tests (SQLite, memory)
internal/rpc/     - RPC protocol tests
internal/*/       - Various internal package tests

Continuous Integration

The test script is designed to work seamlessly with CI/CD:

# Example GitHub Actions
- name: Run tests
  run: make test

Debugging Test Failures

Get detailed output

./scripts/test.sh -v ./path/to/package/...

Run a single test

./scripts/test.sh -run '^TestExactName$' ./cmd/bd/...

Check which tests are being skipped

./scripts/test.sh 2>&1 | head -5

Output shows:

Running: go test -timeout 3m -skip TestFoo|TestBar ./...
Skipping: TestFoo|TestBar

Contributing

When adding new tests:

1. Keep tests fast (<0.1s if possible)
2. Use t.Parallel() for independent tests
3. Clean up resources in t.Cleanup() or defer
4. Avoid sleeps unless testing concurrency

When tests break:

1. Fix them if possible
2. If unfixable right now, file an issue and add to .test-skip
3. Document the issue in .test-skip with issue number