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tiny-pattern-ts/development/testing.md
T
tmu 7ea84b66fa ♻️ Drop the last duplicated prose from development/
The GitHub Flow description and the type-first enforcement sentence still
appeared in both CONTRIBUTING.md and development/. development/ now carries only
the context and rationale that is not in CONTRIBUTING.md.
2026-09-15 13:47:01 +00:00

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# Testing
For this library the types _are_ the feature — narrowing, `exhaustive()`
returns, the `Matcher<T>` contract — so a runtime-only test loop would verify
the wrong thing. The contributor-facing commands are in
[CONTRIBUTING.md](../CONTRIBUTING.md); this file records why the loop is shaped
the way it is.
## Type-driven development
The rules — the loop and the pairing rule — are in
[CONTRIBUTING.md § Testing discipline (type-driven)](../CONTRIBUTING.md#testing-discipline-type-driven).
What follows is why the loop is type-driven and what was rejected.
#### Decision (2026-09)
Test-driven development is _type_-driven here: the compile-time expectation is
written before the runtime assertion, and both before the implementation.
#### Why
- A runtime-only test can pass while the type is wrong, and a type-level library
would then ship a broken feature that its tests bless.
- The type error is a more precise spec than a failing assertion, because it
states the exact expected type before the logic exists.
#### Rejected
- Runtime-first (classic red/green): it verifies the value, not the contract,
and the contract is the product.
- Testing the type only: it would not catch handler wiring, `exhaustive()`
throwing, or the `otherwise` fallback (see `src/index.test.ts`).
The runner is `node --test --strip-types "src/**/*.test.ts"` and the tiers are
listed in
[CONTRIBUTING.md § Development commands](../CONTRIBUTING.md#development-commands).
`c8` uses V8 coverage, so the `--strip-types` source is instrumented without a
build step. The runner relies on the `.ts` import-extension convention (see
[tooling.md](./tooling.md#source-imports-use-ts-extensions)).
## Known issues
- The type-aware linter misidentifies `expectTypeOf()` as a floating promise,
so `src/index.test.ts` carries a file-level `oxlint-disable
typescript/no-floating-promises` with an explanatory comment. This is a known
false positive, not a rule we want off project-wide (see
[tooling.md § oxlint-disable directives live next to the code](./tooling.md#oxlint-disable-directives-live-next-to-the-code)).