Dart Test Fundamentals

When to use this skill

Use this skill when:

• Writing new test files.
• structuring test suites with group.
• Configuring test execution via dart_test.yaml.
• Understanding test lifecycle methods.

Core Concepts

1. Test Structure (test and group)

• test: The fundamental unit of testing.

  test('description', () {
    // assertions
  });
  

• group: Used to organize tests into logical blocks.

  • Groups can be nested.
  • Descriptions are concatenated (e.g., "Group Description Test Description").
  • Helps scope setUp and tearDown calls.
  • Naming: Use PascalCase for groups that correspond to a class name (e.g., group('MyClient', ...)).
  • Avoid Single Groups: Do not wrap all tests in a file with a single group call if it's the only one.

• Naming Tests:

  • Avoid redundant "test" prefixes.
  • Include the expected behavior or outcome in the description (e.g., 'throws StateError' or 'adds API key to URL').
  • Descriptions should read well when concatenated with their group name.

• Named Parameters Placement:

  • For test and group calls, place named parameters (e.g., testOn, timeout, skip) immediately after the description string, before the callback closure. This improves readability by keeping the test logic last.

    test('description', testOn: 'vm', () {
      // assertions
    });
    

2. Lifecycle Methods (setUp, tearDown)

• setUp: Runs before every test in the current group (and nested groups).
• tearDown: Runs after every test in the current group.
• setUpAll: Runs once before any test in the group.
• tearDownAll: Runs once after all tests in the group.

Best Practice:

• Use setUp for resetting state to ensure test isolation.
• Avoid sharing mutable state between tests without resetting it.

3. Configuration (dart_test.yaml)

The dart_test.yaml file configures the test runner. Common configurations include:

Platforms

Define where tests run (vm, chrome, node).

platforms:
  - vm
  - chrome

Tags

Categorize tests to run specific subsets.

tags:
  integration:
    timeout: 2x

Usage in code:

@Tags(['integration'])
import 'package:test/test.dart';

Running tags: dart test --tags integration

Timeouts

Set default timeouts for tests.

timeouts:
  2x # Double the default timeout

4. File Naming

• Test files must end in _test.dart to be picked up by the test runner.
• Place tests in the test/ directory.

Common commands

• dart test: Run all tests.
• dart test test/path/to/file_test.dart: Run a specific file.
• dart test --name "substring": Run tests matching a description.

Related Skills

dart-test-fundamentals is the core skill for structuring and configuring tests. For writing assertions within those tests, refer to:

• dart-matcher-best-practices: Use this if the project sticks with the traditional package:matcher (expect calls).
• dart-checks-migration: Use this if the project is migrating to the modern package:checks (check calls).