Barrier Concurrency Testing

Deterministic race condition testing -- no flaky timing-based tests.

Instead of setTimeout (flaky) or sleep (slow), use barriers to pause execution at exact interleave points. The test controls when each concurrent operation proceeds, making race condition tests deterministic and reproducible on every run.

When to use: Testing concurrent operations, flush conflicts, parallel mutations, race windows between read and write, lock contention scenarios, any code where timing affects correctness.

When not to use: Sequential-only code, simple unit tests, UI components, read-only operations, code with no concurrency concerns.

Rationalizations (Do Not Skip)

Rationalization	Why It's Wrong	Required Action
"setTimeout is good enough"	Timing-based tests are inherently flaky -- they pass 99 times, fail on CI	Use barriers for deterministic control
"It passed 10 times, it's fine"	Heisenbugs hide in timing windows that haven't been hit yet	Barrier at every interleave point
"We don't have race conditions"	Any concurrent code has race windows	Write a barrier test to prove it
"Barriers are too complex"	15 lines of setup prevents hours of debugging flaky failures	Copy the pattern from references

What To Protect (Start Here)

Before generating barrier tests, identify which concurrency decisions apply to your code:

Decision	Question to Answer	If Yes → Use
Concurrent writes must not lose data	Can two writes to the same resource happen simultaneously?	`assertPreservesConcurrentItems`
Failed operations must not corrupt state	Can a failure leave behind partial or inconsistent state?	`assertPreservesOnFailure`
Event/message ordering must be preserved	Does processing order affect correctness?	`assertSequenceContinuity`
Retry state must reset on new input	Can stale retry counts or error flags affect new operations?	`assertRetryCountReset`

Do not generate tests for decisions the human hasn't confirmed. A barrier test without a named invariant is coverage theater — it proves the barrier works, not that the system is correct.

Included Utilities

// Barrier infrastructure + invariant assertions + test data generators
import {
  createBarrier,
  createTrackedBarrier,
  releaseAllBarriers,
  assertPreservesConcurrentItems,
  assertPreservesOnFailure,
  assertSequenceContinuity,
  assertLastSequenceCorrect,
  assertRetryCountReset,
  createTestItems,
} from './test-fixtures.ts';

Violation Rules

inadequate_barrier_coverage

Race conditions MUST have barrier tests at each interleave point. If there are N interleave points in the code, there must be N barrier test cases. Severity: must-fail

flaky_timing_test

NEVER use setTimeout, sleep, or arbitrary delays for concurrency testing. Use barriers for deterministic control. Severity: must-fail

Companion Skills

This skill provides deterministic timing control for concurrency tests, not concurrency architecture guidance. For broader methodology:

Search concurrency on skills.sh for lock-free patterns, actor models, and thread safety analysis
Concurrent state machines need transition coverage — use model-based-testing for N*N transition matrices and guard truth tables
Concurrent failure recovery needs resilience testing — use fault-injection-testing for circuit breaker, retry policy, and queue preservation under concurrent load

Quick Reference

Scenario	Pattern	Example
Block before transaction	`barrier.wait()` in transaction start	Verify concurrent writes preserved
Block during I/O	`deferred.promise` as mock return	Verify queue depth during processing
Multiple interleave points	Multiple barriers, release in sequence	Test all orderings of concurrent ops
Cleanup	`afterEach(() => releaseAllBarriers())`	Prevent test hangs

See patterns.md for full code examples, deferred promise alternative, and framework adaptation guide.

barrier-concurrency-testing