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Test Isolation & Anti-Patterns Auditor (L3 Worker)

Specialized worker auditing test isolation and detecting anti-patterns.

Purpose & Scope

• Worker in ln-630 coordinator pipeline
• Audit Test Isolation (Category 5: Medium Priority)
• Audit Anti-Patterns (Category 6: Medium Priority)
• Check determinism (no flaky tests)
• Calculate compliance score (X/10)

Inputs (from Coordinator)

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/references/audit_worker_core_contract.md.

Receives contextStore with: tech_stack, testFilesMetadata, codebase_root, output_dir.

Workflow

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/references/two_layer_detection.md for detection methodology.

1. Parse Context: Extract tech stack, isolation checklist, anti-patterns catalog, test file list, output_dir from contextStore
2. Check Isolation (Layer 1): Check isolation for 6 categories (APIs, DB, FS, Time, Random, Network) 2b) Context Analysis (Layer 2 — MANDATORY): For each isolation violation, ask:
   • Is this an integration test? (real dependencies are intentional) → do NOT flag. Only flag isolation issues in unit tests
   • Is in-memory DB configured via test config (not visible in grep)? → skip
   • Is this a test helper that sets up mocks for other tests? → skip
3. Check Determinism: Check for flaky tests, time-dependent assertions, order-dependent tests, shared mutable state
4. Detect Anti-Patterns: Detect 6 anti-patterns (Liar, Giant, Slow Poke, Conjoined Twins, Happy Path, Framework Tester)
5. Collect Findings: Record each violation with severity, location (file:line), effort estimate (S/M/L), recommendation
6. Calculate Score: Count violations by severity, calculate compliance score (X/10)
7. Write Report: Build full markdown report in memory per shared/templates/audit_worker_report_template.md, write to {output_dir}/635-isolation.md in single Write call
8. Return Summary: Return minimal summary to coordinator (see Output Format)

Audit Rules: Test Isolation

1. External APIs

Good: Mocked (jest.mock, sinon, nock) Bad: Real HTTP calls to external APIs

Detection:

• Grep for axios.get, fetch(, http.request without mocks
• Check if test makes actual network calls

Severity: HIGH

Recommendation: Ensure external API calls are controlled (mock, stub, or test server). Tool choice depends on project stack. Exception: Integration tests are EXPECTED to use real dependencies — do NOT flag

Effort: M

2. Database

Good: In-memory DB (sqlite :memory:) or mocked Bad: Real database (PostgreSQL, MySQL)

Detection:

• Check DB connection strings (localhost:5432, real DB URL)
• Grep for beforeAll(async () => { await db.connect() }) without :memory:

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Ensure DB state is controlled and isolated between test runs. Exception: Integration tests with in-memory DB via config → skip

Effort: M-L

3. File System

Good: Mocked (mock-fs, vol) Bad: Real file reads/writes

Detection:

• Grep for fs.readFile, fs.writeFile without mocks
• Check if test creates/deletes real files

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Ensure file system operations are isolated (mock, temp directory, or cleanup). Tool choice depends on project stack

Effort: S-M

4. Time/Date

Good: Mocked (jest.useFakeTimers, sinon.useFakeTimers) Bad: new Date(), Date.now() without mocks

Detection:

• Grep for new Date() in test files without useFakeTimers

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Ensure time-dependent logic uses controlled clock (fake timers, injected clock, or time provider). Tool choice depends on project stack

Effort: S

5. Random

Good: Seeded random (Math.seedrandom, fixed seed) Bad: Math.random() without seed

Detection:

• Grep for Math.random() without seed setup

Severity: LOW

Recommendation: Use seeded random for deterministic tests

Effort: S

6. Network

Good: Mocked (supertest for Express, no real ports) Bad: Real network requests (localhost:3000, binding to port)

Detection:

• Grep for app.listen(3000) in tests
• Check for real HTTP requests

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Use supertest (no real port)

Effort: M

Audit Rules: Determinism

1. Flaky Tests

What: Tests that pass/fail randomly

Detection:

• Run tests multiple times, check for inconsistent results
• Grep for setTimeout, setInterval without proper awaits
• Check for race conditions (async operations not awaited)

Severity: HIGH

Recommendation: Fix race conditions, use proper async/await

Effort: M-L

2. Time-Dependent Assertions

What: Assertions on current time (expect(timestamp).toBeCloseTo(Date.now()))

Detection:

• Grep for Date.now(), new Date() in assertions

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Mock time

Effort: S

3. Order-Dependent Tests

What: Tests that fail when run in different order

Detection:

• Run tests in random order, check for failures
• Grep for shared mutable state between tests

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Isolate tests, reset state in beforeEach

Effort: M

4. Shared Mutable State

What: Global variables modified across tests

Detection:

• Grep for let globalVar at module level
• Check for state shared between tests

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Use beforeEach to reset state

Effort: S-M

Audit Rules: Anti-Patterns

1. The Liar (Always Passes)

What: Test with no assertions or trivial assertion (expect().toBeTruthy())

Detection:

• Count assertions per test
• If 0 assertions or only toBeTruthy() → Liar

Severity: HIGH

Recommendation: Add specific assertions or delete test

Effort: S

Example:

• BAD (Liar): Test calls createUser() but has NO assertions — always passes even if function breaks
• GOOD: Test calls createUser() and asserts user.name equals 'Alice', user.id is defined

2. The Giant (>100 lines)

What: Test with >100 lines, testing too many scenarios

Detection:

• Count lines per test
• If >100 lines → Giant

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Split into focused tests (one scenario per test)

Effort: S-M

3. Slow Poke (>5 seconds)

What: Test taking >5 seconds to run

Detection:

• Measure test duration
• If >5s → Slow Poke

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Mock external deps, use in-memory DB, parallelize

Effort: M

4. Conjoined Twins (Unit test without mocks = Integration)

What: Test labeled "Unit" but not mocking dependencies

Detection:

• Check if test name includes "Unit"
• Verify all dependencies are mocked
• If no mocks → actually Integration test

Severity: LOW

Recommendation: Either mock dependencies OR rename to Integration test

Effort: S

5. Happy Path Only (No error scenarios)

What: Only testing success cases, ignoring errors

Detection:

• For each function, check if test covers error cases
• If only positive scenarios → Happy Path Only

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Add negative tests (error handling, edge cases)

Effort: M

Example:

• BAD (Happy Path Only): Test only checks login() with valid credentials, ignores error scenarios
• GOOD: Add negative test that verifies login() with invalid credentials throws 'Invalid credentials' error

6. Framework Tester (Tests framework behavior)

What: Tests validating Express/Prisma/bcrypt (NOT our code)

Detection:

• Tests that ONLY call framework API with no custom logic (same patterns as Business Logic Focus category)
• Skip if this finding is already reported under Category 1 (coordinator deduplicates)

Severity: MEDIUM

Recommendation: Delete framework tests

Effort: S

7. Default Value Blindness (Tests with default config)

What: Tests with default config values only. MANDATORY READ: Load shared/references/risk_based_testing_guide.md → Anti-Pattern 9.

Detection:

• Grep for common defaults in test setup: :8080, :3000, 30000, limit: 20, offset: 0
• Check if test config values match framework/library defaults
• Look for || DEFAULT patterns in source code with matching test values

Severity: HIGH

Effort: S

Scoring Algorithm

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/references/audit_worker_core_contract.md and shared/references/audit_scoring.md.

Severity mapping:

• Flaky tests, External API not mocked, The Liar, Default Value Blindness → HIGH
• Real database, File system, Time/Date, Network, The Giant, Happy Path Only → MEDIUM
• Random without seed, Order-dependent, Conjoined Twins → LOW

Output Format

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/references/audit_worker_core_contract.md and shared/templates/audit_worker_report_template.md.

Write report to {output_dir}/635-isolation.md with category: "Isolation & Anti-Patterns" and checks: api_isolation, db_isolation, fs_isolation, time_isolation, random_isolation, network_isolation, flaky_tests, anti_patterns, default_value_blindness.

Return summary to coordinator:

Report written: docs/project/.audit/ln-630/{YYYY-MM-DD}/635-isolation.md
Score: X.X/10 | Issues: N (C:N H:N M:N L:N)

Note: Findings are flattened into single array. Use principle field prefix (Test Isolation / Determinism / Anti-Patterns) to identify issue category.

Critical Rules

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/references/audit_worker_core_contract.md.

• Do not auto-fix: Report only
• Effort realism: S = <1h, M = 1-4h, L = >4h
• Flat findings: Merge isolation + determinism + anti-patterns into single findings array, use principle prefix to distinguish
• Framework Tester dedup: Category 1 (Business Logic Focus) covers framework tests separately — coordinator deduplicates overlapping findings
• Context-aware: Supertest with real Express app is acceptable for integration tests

Definition of Done

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/references/audit_worker_core_contract.md.

• contextStore parsed successfully (including output_dir)
• All 3 audit groups completed:
  • Isolation (6 categories: APIs, DB, FS, Time, Random, Network)
  • Determinism (4 checks: flaky, time-dependent, order-dependent, shared state)
  • Anti-patterns (7 checks: Liar, Giant, Slow Poke, Conjoined Twins, Happy Path, Framework Tester, Default Value Blindness)
• Findings collected with severity, location, effort, recommendation
• Score calculated using penalty algorithm
• Report written to {output_dir}/635-isolation.md (atomic single Write call)
• Summary returned to coordinator

Version: 3.0.0 Last Updated: 2025-12-23