brooks-test

Brooks-Lint — Test Quality Review

When to Use

Use this skill when you need test quality review drawing on twelve classic engineering books — with primary focus on xUnit Test Patterns, The Art of Unit Testing, How Google Tests Software, and Working Effectively with Legacy Code — that diagnoses structural problems in an existing test suite: brittleness, mock...

Setup

1. Read ../_shared/common.md for the Iron Law, Project Config, Report Template, and Health Score rules
2. Read ../_shared/source-coverage.md for book-level coverage, exceptions, and tradeoffs
3. Read ../_shared/test-decay-risks.md for test-space symptom definitions and source attributions
4. Read test-guide.md in this directory for the test quality review framework

Process

If the user has not shared test files or pointed to a test directory: apply Auto Scope Detection from ../_shared/common.md to determine the review scope before proceeding.

1. Build the test suite map (guide's "Before You Start" section)
2. Scan for each test decay risk in the order specified (Steps 1–4 of the guide)
3. Apply the Iron Law and output using the Report Template (Step 5 of the guide)

Mode line in report: Test Quality Review

Limitations

• Use this skill only when the task clearly matches its upstream source and local project context.
• Verify commands, generated code, dependencies, credentials, and external service behavior before applying changes.
• Do not treat examples as a substitute for environment-specific tests, security review, or user approval for destructive or costly actions.

The ../_shared/ files referenced above are not bundled. Do not claim their scoring, L-code taxonomy, templates or source coverage were applied. The local guide can support a standalone test-quality review: state the inspected scope, quote the concrete source location, explain the observed symptom and consequence, propose a proportionate remedy and list uninspected paths. Do not invent source attributions or framework codes. Obtain the missing material before any step that depends on it.

Ratios such as 70/20/10, mock counts, setup length and elapsed-time cutoffs in the guide are triage heuristics, not proof of poor quality or universal severity thresholds. Unknown runtime means unmeasured; measure it before assigning performance severity. Match suite layers and test density to architecture and risk; report sampled coverage explicitly.