Property-Based Testing

Kind: activity

Layer: Computation Core

Record: architecture:property-based-testing

Severity: recommended

Scope: function, algorithm, parser, domain invariant

Canonical: Ontology

The activity of checking that a stated property holds for many generated inputs, and shrinking each failure to a minimal counterexample.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Specification-Based Testing and before Static Analysis.

Requires

• Properties/Invariants

Reinforces

• Correctness
• Robustness

Enables

• Broad Input Exploration

Conflicts with

• Example-Only Testing

In tension with

• Shrinking/Debug Complexity

Tensions

• Property-Based Testing / Shrinking/Debug Complexity

Violated by

• Example-Only Testing

Refactored by

• Code Generation

Severity

• recommended

Techniques

• Property Based Testing

Category

• Correctness / Determinism / Verification

Refactors

• Test Pyramid Inversion

Linked from

• What can drift, seen through how it drifts
• Anti-patterns
• Correctness / Determinism / Verification
• Core Vocabulary
• Correctness / Determinism / Verification
• Quality Attributes
• The techniques
• Severity levels
• The resolutions