golang-testing

Testing & Quality

Write unit tests with table-driven patterns and interface mocking in Go. Use when writing Go unit tests, table-driven tests, or using mock interfaces.

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Golang Testing

Priority: P0 (CRITICAL)

Implementation Workflow

Write failing test first — Follow Red-Green-Refactor TDD workflow.
Use table-driven tests — Define test cases as slice of structs; iterate with t.Run().
Mock via interfaces — Use DI and interfaces. Prefer mockery for auto-generated mocks or manual mocks for simple cases.
Run parallel — Use t.Parallel() for non-sequential tests to speed up CI.
Clean up resources — Use t.Cleanup() to restore state or release DB/file resources.
Check coverage — Aim for >80% line coverage. Run go test -cover to audit.

See table-driven test examples

Tools

Stdlib: testing package usually enough.
Testify: Assertions (assert, require) and mocks.
Mockery: Auto-generate mocks for interfaces.
GoMock: Popular mocking framework alternative.

Naming

Test file: *_test.go
Test function: func TestName(t *testing.T)
Example function: func ExampleName()

Anti-Patterns

No assert in loops: use t.Run subtests to isolate failures.
No global mock state: define mocks locally within test scope.
No skipping race detection: always run go test -race in CI.

References

Other versions