Test quality review drawing on twelve classic engineering books — with primary focus on xUnit Test Patterns, The Art of Unit Testing, How Google Tests Software, and Working Effectively with Legacy Code — that diagnoses structural problems in an existing test suite: brittleness, mock abuse, coverage illusions, slow execution, poor readability.
SkillScore41Maintained
Automatic
◆QA & Test Engineering pack
Last verified 8/14/2026
What it changes
Passed 8 of 19 test cases with the skill, and 4 of 19 without it.
Without skill23%
With skill41%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
Includes the mode line Test Quality Review.
Outputs Test Quality Review on the mode line.
Applies the Iron Law during the report generation step.
and 6 more in the full report
7 fixed2 passed either way10 still failing3 broke
Pass-rate lift
+18 pp
Tokens
-25%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
-34%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/14/2026v29 of 22 cases passed with skill · 19 comparable
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 6 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 6
Prompt
In conducting a test quality audit on `tests/`, which foundational shared documentation file must be loaded first before source coverage or decay risks?
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
Identifies common.md as the initial file to read in the setup order.
Missed
Passed
case-13 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/14/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
SKILL.md21 linessingle file
Brooks-Lint — Test Quality Review
Setup
Read in order:
../_shared/common.md — Iron Law, Project Config, Report Template, Health Score
../_shared/source-coverage.md — book coverage, exceptions, tradeoffs
../_shared/test-decay-risks.md — test-space symptom definitions and sources
test-guide.md (this directory) — the test quality review framework
Process
Scope: if the user did not share test files or point to a test directory, apply Auto
Scope Detection (../_shared/common.md) first.
Build the test suite map (guide's "Before You Start" section)
Scan for each test decay risk in the order specified (Steps 1–4 of the guide)
Apply the Iron Law and output using the Report Template (Step 5 of the guide)