Comment by suralind
7 hours ago
I'm not saying my approach is correct, keep that in mind.
I care more about the code than the tests. Tests are verification of my work. And yes, there is a risk of AI "navigating around" bugs, but I found that a lot of the time AI will actually spot a bug and suggest a fix. I also review each line to look for improvements.
Edit: to answer your question, I will typically ask it to test a specific test case or few test cases. Very rarely will I ask it to "add tests everywhere". Yes, these tests frequently fail and the agent will fix on 2nd+ iteration after it runs the tests.
One more thing to add is that a lot of the time agent will add a "dummy" test. I don't really accept those for coverage's sake.
Thanks for your responses!
A follow-up:
> I care more about the code than the tests.
Why is that? Your (product) code has tests. Your test (code) doesn't. So I often find that I need to pay at least as much attention to my tests to ensure quality.
I think you are correct in your assessment. Both are important. If you're gonna have garbage code tests, you're gonna have garbage quality.
I find tests easier to write. Your function(s) may be hundred lines long, but the test is usually setup, run, assert.
I don't have much experience beyond writing unit/integration tests, but individual test cases seem to be simpler than the code they test (linear, no branches).