Mock Mirage

Kind: anti-pattern

Layer: Enforcement Core

Record: architecture:mock-mirage

Severity: discouraged

Scope: contract_compatibility, correctness_verification, observability_traceability

Formed by: Overuse mocks so tests verify internal calls rather than observable behavior or contracts.

Canonical: Ontology

A defect in which tests assert calls on mocks rather than observable behavior or contracts.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Test Pyramid Inversion and before Flaky Test Normalization.

Refactored by

• Test Observable Behavior
• Contract Testing
• Fake at the Boundary

Severity

• discouraged

Category

• Anti-patterns

Force

• Contract compatibility
• Correctness verification
• Observability traceability

Negated by

• Specification-Based Testing

Linked from

• The check comes first
• Verify the verifier
• What can drift, seen through how it drifts
• Anti-patterns
• Correctness / Determinism / Verification
• Contracts / Interfaces / Compatibility
• Correctness / Determinism / Verification
• Failure shapes
• Severity levels
• The forces