testing-bosslisted

# Testing Boss Tests exist to expose defects, not to keep CI green. A test that fails has done its job; a test that passes for the wrong reason is worse than none. The doctrine spans human and AI-generated code, LLM/agent features, and the CI that gates them; its body lives in `references/` as language-agnostic pseudo-code. ## Iron Laws Apply every law that bears on the change under test. They subsume every anti-pattern named in the references; when two disagree, the lower-numbered one wins. ``` 1. Test the behavior, never the mock. 2. Push every test to the lowest layer that can detect the failure. 3. When a test fails, fix production first — change the test only after writing why. 4. Real systems gate the merge. Mocks isolate; they do not validate. 5. Coverage is a flashlight. Mutation score is a quality probe. Neither is a target. 6. No test-only methods, branches, or flags leak into production code. ``` ## Reference router The Iron Laws are the always-loaded tripwire; each reference is the contract. Match the task, read the listed file(s) **in full** before producing output, and apply every gate, pattern, and principle in them that bears on the work. | When you are… | Read in full | | --- | --- | | Deciding where a test belongs — layer, owner, boundary, or whether to write it at all | `references/foundations.md` | | Writing a test at any layer — selectors, waits, test data, isolation, what to mock | `references/patterns.md` | | Reviewing a test, smelling brittlenes