Smelly test

Smelly test is an extension that helps developers mitigate test smells in their test suites. Smelly test is focused on the javascript/typescript ecosystem, for the backend and frontend.

Why?

Test smells have been researched and are known for their negative impact on test code understanding and making maintenance difficult. You might be wondering why another extension that focuses on test smells in the era of AI. This is a fair thought and I had the same question while building the extension. However, the javascript/typescript ecosystem lacks such a tool to help mitigate test smells in code bases out there. If we compare the Java ecosystem there are tools developed for that for years in academic settings. If we start to dig into the frontend technologies for mitigating test smells it is even worse. This extension provides an aid for that.

How?

Smelly works automatically whenever a javascript/typescript test is opened. The extension detects files that have test or spec in their name. The video above depicts the smells being detected when the file is opened.

Features

• server-side javascript/typescript
  • Identify if statements in the test code
  • Identify for of loops in the test code
  • Identify setTimeout in the test code
  • detect console logs as a reference to the loudmouth
  • excessive usage of jest mocks
• client-side javascript/typescript
  • jsx/tsx
    • Identify if statements in the test code
    • Identify for of loops in the test code
    • Identify setTimeout in the test code
    • excessive usage of jest mocks

Configuration

Smelly allows you to customize its configuration and fine-tune the smell detection to better suit your needs. The table below outlines the available options and their functions:

Planned smells

• heuristics regarding test size
• heuristics regarding 1 test file for 1 production file