Mocking Way

Source: hooks/ways/softwaredev/code/testing/mocking/mocking.md

Frontmatter

Field	Value
description	mocking dependencies, test doubles, fakes, stubs, spies, dependency injection for tests
vocabulary	mock fake stub spy double dependency inject external isolate test double
refire	0.2
scope	agent, subagent

What to Mock

• External dependencies — network, filesystem, databases, third-party APIs
• Slow or non-deterministic operations — time, randomness, system calls

What NOT to Mock

• The code under test or its internal helpers
• Value objects or simple data structures
• Anything you control and can test directly

Prefer Fakes Over Mocks

In-memory implementations (fakes) are more reliable than mock libraries: - Fakes exercise real behavior, mocks only verify method calls - Fakes don't break when implementation details change - Use mock libraries only when fakes would be too complex to write

Mock Hygiene

• Reset mocks between tests — shared mock state causes flaky tests
• Don't assert on call counts unless the count IS the behavior
• If you need more than 3 mocks in a test, the code has too many dependencies — refactor first