[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":884},["ShallowReactive",2],{"post-\u002Fblog\u002Fretrofitting-testing-without-mocks":3,"blog-all":381},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"category":362,"date":363,"description":364,"draft":365,"extension":366,"image":367,"meta":368,"navigation":369,"path":370,"project":371,"readingMinutes":372,"seo":373,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374,"stem":375,"tags":376,"__hash__":380},"blog\u002Fblog\u002Fretrofitting-testing-without-mocks.md","Retrofitting Testing Without Mocks","EkoHacks Team",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":352},"minimark",[10,19,22,27,41,48,52,58,69,74,104,123,128,153,162,167,189,194,201,205,214,315,318,322,329,333,339,343,349],[11,12,13,14,18],"p",{},"The server had 37 instances of ",[15,16,17],"code",{},"vi.mock"," spread across three test files. Prisma was mocked, the WakaTime HTTP client was hidden inside a private function, the GitHub handler tests asserted on mock call counts, and the integration test for the webhooks route was mocking four handlers to avoid touching the database. None of the tests exercised the database, none of them would have caught a broken Prisma query, and the whole scaffolding broke quietly whenever anyone refactored a function signature.",[11,20,21],{},"This is the state that Shore's Nullables pattern was invented to fix. We retrofitted it over five small steps. This post is the walkthrough.",[23,24,26],"h2",{"id":25},"where-we-started","Where we started",[11,28,29,30,33,34,36,37,40],{},"Four test files in ",[15,31,32],{},"server\u002Ftest\u002F",". Three used ",[15,35,17],{}," to replace Prisma, the XP service, the repo service, and the GitHub event handlers. The only pure file was ",[15,38,39],{},"signature.test.ts",", which worked only because HMAC verification is arithmetic.",[11,42,43,44,47],{},"We also had a teaching kata at ",[15,45,46],{},"katas\u002Fwakatime\u002F"," that had already done the pure function extraction on paper. It described the shape of the pattern without applying it to the production code.",[23,49,51],{"id":50},"the-five-steps","The five steps",[11,53,54],{},[55,56,57],"strong",{},"Step 1: extract the pure logic.",[11,59,60,61,64,65,68],{},"The WakaTime service had about 80 lines of arithmetic tangled with Prisma reads and ",[15,62,63],{},"awardXP"," calls. We lifted four pure functions into ",[15,66,67],{},"server\u002Fsrc\u002Fservices\u002Fwakatime-logic.ts",": XP calculation, editor breakdown parsing, streak counting, and language aggregation. 15 unit tests against the new module run in 5 milliseconds and touch nothing external. The original service imports and delegates.",[11,70,71],{},[55,72,73],{},"Step 2: set up a real test database.",[11,75,76,77,80,81,84,85,88,89,92,93,95,96,99,100,103],{},"The existing Docker Postgres on 5433 got a second database called ",[15,78,79],{},"dojo_test",". A setup script at ",[15,82,83],{},"server\u002Fscripts\u002Fsetup-test-db.sh"," drops and recreates it, then runs ",[15,86,87],{},"prisma migrate deploy",". Vitest gets a ",[15,90,91],{},"DATABASE_URL"," pointed at ",[15,94,79],{}," via the config. A ",[15,97,98],{},"resetDb"," helper truncates every application table between tests. An ",[15,101,102],{},"assertTestDatabase"," guard in the same file throws if the URL ever drifts back to the main database.",[11,105,106,107,110,111,114,115,118,119,122],{},"Cleaning this up surfaced a side project: the Prisma migrations folder had seven migrations describing an older schema while the main database had been moved forward via ",[15,108,109],{},"prisma db push",". We collapsed the seven into a single ",[15,112,113],{},"0_init"," generated from the current ",[15,116,117],{},"schema.prisma",", marked it applied on the main DB, and pointed the test setup script at ",[15,120,121],{},"migrate deploy",". Both databases now agree with the migration history.",[11,124,125],{},[55,126,127],{},"Step 3: build the infrastructure wrapper.",[11,129,130,133,134,137,138,141,142,145,146,148,149,152],{},[15,131,132],{},"server\u002Fsrc\u002Finfrastructure\u002Fwakatime-client.ts"," wraps ",[15,135,136],{},"fetch"," with two factory methods. ",[15,139,140],{},"WakatimeClient.create()"," returns the real client. ",[15,143,144],{},"WakatimeClient.createNull({ summaries: [...] })"," returns an instance whose ",[15,147,136],{}," is replaced with a scripted stub. Both share the same ",[15,150,151],{},"fetchSummary"," method, so parsing, status handling, and error recovery run end to end in tests. Eight tests exercise both modes and run in 7 milliseconds.",[11,154,155,156,158,159,161],{},"The Nullable pattern here is the piece that does the heavy lifting. You do not mock ",[15,157,136],{},". You do not wrap the client in a stub object. You replace only the network boundary, inside the real class, by passing a different ",[15,160,136],{}," to the constructor. The production code path is fully exercised in tests.",[11,163,164],{},[55,165,166],{},"Step 4: rewrite the service tests sociably.",[11,168,169,172,173,176,177,180,181,184,185,188],{},[15,170,171],{},"services\u002Fwakatime.ts"," now takes a ",[15,174,175],{},"WakatimeClient"," as an optional parameter, defaulting to the real one. Tests pass in a Nullable client configured with a scripted summary and run against the real database. Seven tests cover no API key, no data, sub hour activity, focus hour XP, stacked bonuses, idempotency, and API errors. Each one creates a participant, calls ",[15,178,179],{},"syncWakaTimeActivity",", and asserts on rows in ",[15,182,183],{},"WakaTimeActivity"," and ",[15,186,187],{},"XPTransaction",". Zero test doubles, real Prisma, real XP awarding logic.",[11,190,191],{},[55,192,193],{},"Step 5: rewrite the GitHub handler tests.",[11,195,196,197,200],{},"Three test files, one at a time. Each one seeds a participant and whatever prerequisite rows the handler reads, calls the handler directly, and asserts on database state after. The push handler test verifies a ",[15,198,199],{},"GitMetric"," is created and the repo commit count increments. The check run handler test verifies a pending metric flips to green and the participant streak goes up. The webhooks route integration test hits the full stack with a signed payload and asserts that routing, signature verification, raw body handling, and handler execution all compose correctly against the real database.",[23,202,204],{"id":203},"what-came-out-the-other-side","What came out the other side",[11,206,207,213],{},[55,208,209,210,212],{},"Zero instances of ",[15,211,17],{}," anywhere in the test directory."," An ESLint rule banning it would be enforceable without any follow up cleanup.",[215,216,217,233],"table",{},[218,219,220],"thead",{},[221,222,223,227,230],"tr",{},[224,225,226],"th",{},"Metric",[224,228,229],{},"Before",[224,231,232],{},"After",[234,235,236,250,262,273,284,294,304],"tbody",{},[221,237,238,244,247],{},[239,240,241,243],"td",{},[15,242,17],{}," usages",[239,245,246],{},"37",[239,248,249],{},"0",[221,251,252,257,260],{},[239,253,254,243],{},[15,255,256],{},"vi.mocked",[239,258,259],{},"dozens",[239,261,249],{},[221,263,264,267,270],{},[239,265,266],{},"Total tests",[239,268,269],{},"44",[239,271,272],{},"70",[221,274,275,278,281],{},[239,276,277],{},"Pure logic tests",[239,279,280],{},"9",[239,282,283],{},"32",[221,285,286,289,291],{},[239,287,288],{},"Infrastructure tests",[239,290,249],{},[239,292,293],{},"8",[221,295,296,299,301],{},[239,297,298],{},"Sociable integration tests",[239,300,249],{},[239,302,303],{},"30",[221,305,306,309,312],{},[239,307,308],{},"Suite wall clock",[239,310,311],{},"1.2s",[239,313,314],{},"11.9s",[11,316,317],{},"Those numbers are from running the full vitest suite three times on each commit. The 11 seconds is worth naming. It is slower than the previous suite because most of the new tests touch Postgres. A handler runs, a few rows get inserted, the next test truncates. Each round trip costs maybe a hundred milliseconds. The payoff is that every one of those tests catches a broken Prisma query, a broken schema assumption, a broken migration, or a broken service boundary. The old suite caught none of those. The new suite caught three already, as a side effect of the retrofit itself.",[23,319,321],{"id":320},"the-pattern-in-one-paragraph","The pattern, in one paragraph",[11,323,324,325,328],{},"Pull pure logic out of side effect laden services. Unit test it directly, no doubles. Wrap each external service in a thin class with a real factory and a Nullable factory. The Nullable replaces only the boundary, usually by passing a scripted stub into the real class, so the rest of the code runs the same way in tests and production. Write application tests sociably, against a real database in a test instance, with Nullable wrappers plugged in. Nothing in your test directory should be the word ",[15,326,327],{},"mock",".",[23,330,332],{"id":331},"what-it-cost","What it cost",[11,334,335,336,338],{},"A ",[15,337,98],{}," helper and a small setup script. One extra database on the same Postgres container. One configuration line turning off parallel file execution, because tests sharing a database cannot safely run concurrently. About ten additional seconds on the test suite. One afternoon of retrofitting.",[23,340,342],{"id":341},"what-it-buys-going-forward","What it buys going forward",[11,344,345,346,348],{},"Refactors stop breaking test setups. Renaming a Prisma field fails the test that was relying on it, at the right layer, with a real error message. Adding a new handler is a copy of the push handler test with a different payload and different assertions, not a copy of a dozen ",[15,347,17],{}," lines with slightly different shapes. Teaching new joiners the pattern is a half hour kata, not a week of debugging why their mock fell out of sync with the service.",[11,350,351],{},"We have been telling workshop cohorts to stop mocking for two years. This is the first version of our own repository that walks the talk.",{"title":353,"searchDepth":354,"depth":354,"links":355},"",2,[356,357,358,359,360,361],{"id":25,"depth":354,"text":26},{"id":50,"depth":354,"text":51},{"id":203,"depth":354,"text":204},{"id":320,"depth":354,"text":321},{"id":331,"depth":354,"text":332},{"id":341,"depth":354,"text":342},"Testing and TDD","2026-04-17T12:30:37.000Z","The server had 37 vi.mock calls and no test that touched the database. Five steps to remove every mock with Nullables: real logic, real data, sociable tests.",false,"md","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fretrofitting-without-mocks-hero.jpg",{},true,"\u002Fblog\u002Fretrofitting-testing-without-mocks","The Dojo",5,{"title":5,"description":364},null,"blog\u002Fretrofitting-testing-without-mocks",[377,378,379],"testing","nullables","mocks","RMUbvvxfdIsf3x4fzdwaShqjLHbzZIB2UXoPLKYBgHE",[382,394,408,416,425,432,441,448,455,464,471,480,487,494,507,516,523,530,539,547,549,559,566,574,582,588,594,603,611,621,629,636,647,655,661,671,680,688,696,704,712,719,727,735,742,748,755,764,772,779,786,795,801,809,815,823,829,838,845,852,860,866,872,878],{"path":383,"title":384,"description":385,"date":386,"author":6,"image":387,"readingMinutes":388,"category":389,"project":371,"tags":390,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fa-branch-is-inventory","A Branch Is Inventory","Unintegrated code is stock in a warehouse, and it depreciates. Our branch was one merge behind the trunk and that was enough for a conflict. What waiting costs.","2026-07-09T09:38:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fa-branch-is-inventory-hero.jpg",6,"Craft and Practice",[391,392,393],"git","continuous-integration","craft",{"path":395,"title":396,"description":397,"date":398,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":399,"category":400,"project":401,"tags":402,"draft":365,"series":406,"seriesOrder":407},"\u002Fblog\u002Fa-map-drawn-by-the-build","A Map Drawn by the Build","Thirty six of our pages had never been visited by Google because nothing said they existed. The sitemap is drawn from the build, and it found a draft.","2026-08-22T20:30:00.000Z",7,"Shipping and Operations","ekohacks.com",[403,404,405],"seo","operations","nuxt","From Invisible to Findable",3,{"path":409,"title":410,"description":411,"date":412,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":401,"tags":413,"draft":365,"series":406,"seriesOrder":415},"\u002Fblog\u002Fa-privacy-policy-you-can-diff","A Privacy Policy You Can Diff","Our legal pages are files in the same repository as the site. Each now lists every change to its text, with the date and the diff, drawn from git at build time.","2026-08-23T16:00:00.000Z",[414,404,405],"privacy",9,{"path":417,"title":418,"description":419,"date":420,"author":6,"image":421,"readingMinutes":399,"category":362,"project":422,"tags":423,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fan-off-switch-not-a-disguise","An Off Switch, Not a Disguise","A Nullable differs from a stub in whether production code can tell the fake is there. Finding the word fixed a socket wrapper that had been lying to its tests.","2026-07-20T09:05:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fan-off-switch-not-a-disguise-hero.jpg","EkoLite",[378,377,424],"websocket",{"path":426,"title":427,"description":428,"date":429,"author":6,"image":430,"readingMinutes":431,"category":389,"project":374,"tags":374,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fbuilding-engineering-teams-that-learn-together","Building Engineering Teams That Learn Together","The strongest engineering teams are not the ones with the most talented individuals. They are the ones that have learned how to learn together.","2026-02-05T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fteams-that-learn-together-hero.jpg",4,{"path":433,"title":434,"description":435,"date":436,"author":6,"image":437,"readingMinutes":431,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":438,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fderived-state-recompute","The Fix Was Merged, but the Numbers Were Still Wrong","We fixed a scoring bug, reviewed it, merged it, and production still showed the old numbers. Derived data is a cache that goes stale, and it must be recomputed.","2026-07-08T21:43:55.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fderived-state-recompute-hero.jpg",[404,439,440],"deployment","idempotency",{"path":442,"title":443,"description":444,"date":445,"author":446,"image":447,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":374,"tags":374,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fdockerising-nestjs-nuxt-monorepo-with-pnpm","Dockerising a NestJS and Nuxt Monorepo with pnpm","Dockerising a NestJS and Nuxt monorepo with pnpm: separate multi stage Dockerfiles for development and production, one Compose file, reproducible environments.","2026-02-09T09:00:00.000Z","Ogochukwu Okpala","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fdocker-monorepo-hero.png",{"path":449,"title":450,"description":451,"date":452,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":399,"category":400,"project":401,"tags":453,"draft":365,"series":406,"seriesOrder":454},"\u002Fblog\u002Ffifty-posts-and-an-empty-robots-txt","Fifty Posts and an Empty robots.txt","Our site scored 100 for SEO and nobody could find it. The audit that started a series on making a site findable, and on what measuring visitors costs them.","2026-08-21T14:30:00.000Z",[403,404,393],0,{"path":456,"title":457,"description":458,"date":459,"author":6,"image":460,"readingMinutes":431,"category":389,"project":371,"tags":461,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Ffrom-convention-to-plugin","From Convention to Plugin","A five step procedure for webhook signature checks, easy to forget and silent when you did, became one Fastify plugin. The safe path is now impossible to skip.","2026-04-17T08:26:12.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ffrom-convention-to-plugin-hero.jpg",[393,462,463],"fastify","security",{"path":465,"title":466,"description":467,"date":468,"author":6,"image":469,"readingMinutes":372,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":470,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fintegrate-against-the-trunk","Integrate Against the Trunk, Not Your Copy of It","A rebase onto a stale local main succeeds, looks resolved, and leaves the pull request conflicting. Everything on your machine is a photograph of the trunk.","2026-07-09T09:22:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fintegrate-against-the-trunk-hero.jpg",[391,392,404],{"path":472,"title":473,"description":474,"date":475,"author":6,"image":476,"readingMinutes":431,"category":389,"project":371,"tags":477,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Flandmines","Landmines","Most CLAUDE.md files grow because documenting a convention feels like progress. Ours holds landmines only: facts the code cannot tell you, costly to step on.","2026-04-17T10:15:06.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Flandmines-hero.jpg",[393,478,479],"documentation","ai-agents",{"path":481,"title":482,"description":483,"date":484,"author":6,"image":485,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":486,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fnever-break-the-build","Never Break the Build","If the software worked five minutes ago, only five minutes of change can be to blame. What a green trunk buys, who pays for it, and a check that could not fail.","2026-07-09T09:54:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fnever-break-the-build-hero.jpg",[392,404,377],{"path":488,"title":489,"description":490,"date":491,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":399,"category":400,"project":401,"tags":492,"draft":365,"series":406,"seriesOrder":354},"\u002Fblog\u002Fone-address-per-page","One Address per Page","Every page on our site answered with a redirect before it answered with a page. How we made the build emit one address, declare it, and check it live.","2026-08-22T18:30:00.000Z",[403,404,405,493],"netlify",{"path":495,"title":496,"description":497,"date":498,"author":6,"image":499,"readingMinutes":431,"category":500,"project":501,"tags":502,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fone-command-three-policies","One Command, Three Policies, Zero Duplication","Preflight, cut and ship each worked alone before one command composed them. Why the composition layer is forty lines, and how the scrollback became the record.","2026-07-21T17:20:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fone-command-three-policies-hero.jpg","Design and Architecture","The EkoHacks CLI",[503,504,505,506],"composition","cli-design","narration","encoding-the-release",{"path":508,"title":509,"description":510,"date":511,"author":6,"image":512,"readingMinutes":399,"category":500,"project":422,"tags":513,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fone-way-to-fail","One Way to Fail","Closing the convergence so an upload fails in the same error shape as every other call, mostly by deleting the code that made the two shapes differ.","2026-07-20T10:05:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fone-way-to-fail-hero.jpg",[514,378,515],"design","error handling",{"path":517,"title":518,"description":519,"date":520,"author":6,"image":521,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":522,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fready-to-ship-not-ready-to-release","Ready to Ship, Not Ready to Release","Most teams hide a delay between saying done and being able to ship. Being ready to release at any moment, and why our deploy ships the commit that was tested.","2026-07-09T10:02:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fready-to-ship-hero.jpg",[392,439,404],{"path":524,"title":525,"description":526,"date":527,"author":6,"image":528,"readingMinutes":388,"category":389,"project":371,"tags":529,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Frebase-or-merge-is-the-wrong-argument","Rebase or Merge Is the Wrong Argument","Both commands reconcile the same commits and hit the same conflicts. What differs is when you resolve them. The loud argument hides a quiet one: long branches.","2026-07-09T09:30:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Frebase-or-merge-hero.jpg",[391,392,393],{"path":531,"title":532,"description":533,"date":534,"author":6,"image":535,"readingMinutes":407,"category":500,"project":371,"tags":536,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Freconstructing-the-past","Reconstructing the Past","Connect a repository with a year of history and a trend curve reaches back months. How a system shows a past it never saw, recomputed from one source of truth.","2026-07-07T21:26:35.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Freconstructing-the-past-hero.jpg",[514,537,538],"data","onboarding",{"path":540,"title":541,"description":542,"date":543,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":388,"category":362,"project":501,"tags":544,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fretiring-a-board","Retiring a Board: User Testing a CLI Before You Ship It","An afternoon of user testing against a real Linear board, and the four findings a green test suite could never have written.","2026-08-01T10:20:00.000Z",[545,378,504,546],"user-testing","linear",{"path":370,"title":5,"description":364,"date":363,"author":6,"image":367,"readingMinutes":372,"category":362,"project":371,"tags":548,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},[377,378,379],{"path":550,"title":551,"description":552,"date":553,"author":6,"image":554,"readingMinutes":431,"category":400,"project":501,"tags":555,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Frun-it-by-hand-until-it-is-boring","Run It by Hand Until It Is Boring","Releasing EkoLite was a document before it was a command, and stayed one until running it by hand had nothing left to teach us. Why we automate operations last.","2026-07-21T17:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Frun-it-by-hand-hero.jpg",[556,557,558,506],"automation","releasing","process",{"path":560,"title":561,"description":562,"date":534,"author":6,"image":563,"readingMinutes":407,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":564,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fsafe-to-run-twice","Safe to Run Twice","Connect the same repository twice, or let a webhook redeliver an event. Idempotency in two halves: writes through a natural key, side effects behind a ledger.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fsafe-to-run-twice-hero.jpg",[404,440,565],"webhooks",{"path":567,"title":568,"description":569,"date":570,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":571,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fsource-or-execute","Source or Execute","Our dojo laptops are provisioned by one bash script of nearly twelve hundred lines. Splitting it into modules is two decisions, not one, and we chose a hybrid.","2026-08-01T09:00:00.000Z",[572,573,503,404],"shell","provisioning",{"path":575,"title":576,"description":577,"date":374,"author":578,"image":579,"readingMinutes":580,"category":500,"project":581,"tags":374,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fstage-then-transform-why-your-crawler-should-never-touch-production-tables","Stage, Then Transform: Crawlers Stay Out of Production","Where data from an external source lands first decides whether the pipeline still works in six months. The staging pattern, shown with a crawler we build now.","EkoHacks","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fstage-then-transform-hero.jpg",1,"Propi",{"path":583,"title":584,"description":585,"date":586,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":399,"category":362,"project":401,"tags":587,"draft":365,"series":406,"seriesOrder":372},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftelling-the-machine-what-the-page-is","Telling the Machine What the Page Is","Structured data on every post, and a test that runs after each build and fails it when a page lacks what a crawler needs. First run: forty nine problems.","2026-08-22T23:30:00.000Z",[403,377,405],{"path":589,"title":590,"description":591,"date":592,"author":6,"image":593,"readingMinutes":354,"category":362,"project":374,"tags":374,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftest-driven-development-is-not-about-tests","Test Driven Development Is Not About Tests","TDD is widely misunderstood. It is not a testing strategy. It is a design tool that produces simpler, more focused code by making you think before you type.","2026-02-01T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftdd-not-about-tests-hero.jpg",{"path":595,"title":596,"description":597,"date":598,"author":6,"image":599,"readingMinutes":372,"category":362,"project":501,"tags":600,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftesting-a-release-without-releasing","Testing a Release Without Releasing","How to test watch CI until green, then merge, hundreds of times a day with no CI in sight. Nullables, output trackers, and a fake that copies GitHub shapes.","2026-07-21T17:10:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftesting-a-release-without-releasing-hero.jpg",[378,601,602,506],"testing-without-mocks","james-shore",{"path":604,"title":605,"description":606,"date":607,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":388,"category":362,"project":371,"tags":608,"draft":365,"series":610,"seriesOrder":580},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-best-coverage-number-in-the-room","The Best Coverage Number in the Room","Same commit, same spec, same test count. The mocked suite ran 5.6 times faster, covered 3.5 fewer points of real code, and posted the best branch coverage.","2026-08-27T12:00:00.000Z",[377,378,379,609],"coverage","What Mocks Cost",{"path":612,"title":613,"description":614,"date":615,"author":6,"image":616,"readingMinutes":372,"category":500,"project":422,"tags":617,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-bug-that-resolved-successfully","The Bug That Resolved Successfully","A bug that threw no error and dropped every document because the client guessed a collection from a name. The fix was one honest field on the ready message.","2026-07-05T10:16:16.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fbug-resolved-successfully-hero.jpg",[618,619,377,620],"protocol","pubsub","tdd",{"path":622,"title":623,"description":624,"date":625,"author":6,"image":626,"readingMinutes":388,"category":362,"project":422,"tags":627,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-clock-that-learned-to-walk","The Clock That Learned to Walk","A stub clock that teleported to the end of the window instead of passing through time, so a timer set inside another never fired. A real clock model fixed it.","2026-07-07T22:44:42.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-clock-that-learned-to-walk-hero.jpg",[378,377,628],"refactoring",{"path":630,"title":631,"description":632,"date":633,"author":6,"image":634,"readingMinutes":372,"category":389,"project":371,"tags":635,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-conflict-nobody-wrote","The Conflict Nobody Wrote","A pull request conflicted in a file neither author had typed into. A generated document recorded test line numbers, both branches shifted them, git merges text.","2026-07-09T09:14:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-conflict-nobody-wrote-hero.jpg",[391,392,393],{"path":637,"title":638,"description":639,"date":640,"author":6,"image":641,"readingMinutes":642,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":643,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-container-that-wasnt-there","The Container That Wasn't There","Production served HTML where the browser asked for JavaScript, and nothing in our code had changed. A week debugging a platform we cannot see inside.","2026-07-17T14:30:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fcontainer-that-wasnt-there-hero.jpg",8,[404,644,645,646],"debugging","european-tech","community",{"path":648,"title":649,"description":650,"date":651,"author":6,"image":652,"readingMinutes":388,"category":500,"project":422,"tags":653,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-design-we-never-drew","The Design We Never Drew","How the upload path in EkoLite arrived rather than being drawn, and the two habits, test first and integrate always, that turn an emerging shape into a design.","2026-07-20T10:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-design-we-never-drew-hero.jpg",[514,620,654],"continuous integration",{"path":656,"title":657,"description":658,"date":659,"author":6,"image":660,"readingMinutes":431,"category":389,"project":374,"tags":374,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-dojo-way-deliberate-practice-for-software-developers","The Dojo Way: Deliberate Practice for Software Developers","Most developers learn on the job, and the job rarely teaches the fundamentals. The Dojo borrows from martial arts to make a space for deliberate practice.","2026-01-22T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-dojo-way-hero.jpg",{"path":662,"title":663,"description":664,"date":665,"author":6,"image":666,"readingMinutes":399,"category":389,"project":371,"tags":667,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-done-column-is-a-syllabus","The Done Column Is a Syllabus","We asked Linear for every story our team has ever finished, all 187 of them, and read the column end to end. It turned out to be the course we teach.","2026-07-31T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fdone-column-syllabus-hero.jpg",[668,669,670,546],"graphql","stories","xp",{"path":672,"title":673,"description":674,"date":675,"author":6,"image":676,"readingMinutes":372,"category":362,"project":501,"tags":677,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-failing-test-is-the-review","The Failing Test Is the Review","Every behaviour in the CLI landed as two commits: a red test, then the code that makes it green. Reviewing intent before implementation, and why red never bent.","2026-07-21T17:05:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-failing-test-is-the-review-hero.jpg",[620,678,679,506],"red-first","code-review",{"path":681,"title":682,"description":683,"date":684,"author":6,"image":685,"readingMinutes":372,"category":400,"project":501,"tags":686,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-first-real-run-said-no","The First Real Run Said No","The tool's first real outing ended with FAIL and a stopped rail, and we count it as a success. A naive sounding question then uncovered a quiet failure mode.","2026-07-21T17:25:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-first-real-run-said-no-hero.jpg",[557,687,391,506],"preflight",{"path":689,"title":690,"description":691,"date":692,"author":6,"image":693,"readingMinutes":372,"category":400,"project":422,"tags":694,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-five-second-goodbye","The Five Second Goodbye","A shutdown that arms its own deadline so a hung close cannot strand the process, with the policy lifted out of the boot shell so every decision can be tested.","2026-07-05T12:03:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-five-second-goodbye-hero.jpg",[695,378,377],"shutdown",{"path":697,"title":698,"description":699,"date":700,"author":6,"image":701,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":422,"tags":702,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-framework-in-the-description-field","The Framework in the Description Field","Our package called itself a framework, but it could not be installed. The fix was to stop trusting the build and become the stranger who installs the tarball.","2026-07-08T17:28:39.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fframework-description-field-hero.jpg",[703,377,393],"packaging",{"path":705,"title":706,"description":707,"date":708,"author":6,"image":709,"readingMinutes":431,"category":500,"project":501,"tags":710,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-gate-always-asks","The Gate Always Asks","A release automates things you cannot take back, so which of them may a machine do without asking a human? Pauses, and a yes flag that opens no door.","2026-07-21T17:15:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-gate-always-asks-hero.jpg",[556,711,514,506],"human-in-the-loop",{"path":713,"title":714,"description":715,"date":716,"author":6,"image":717,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":718,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-gate-went-red-and-it-was-right","The Gate Went Red, and It Was Right","We added the missing check on our API specification and it failed on its first run, because the file was never a function of the source. A clean machine saw it.","2026-07-09T10:10:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fgate-went-red-hero.jpg",[392,404,393],{"path":720,"title":721,"description":722,"date":723,"author":6,"image":724,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":422,"tags":725,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-knock-and-the-axe","The Knock and the Axe","SIGTERM is a request your process can hear and SIGKILL is removal it never sees, and the fixed window between them is exactly where graceful shutdown lives.","2026-07-20T12:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-knock-and-the-axe-hero.jpg",[695,404,726],"signals",{"path":728,"title":729,"description":730,"date":731,"author":6,"image":732,"readingMinutes":642,"category":389,"project":422,"tags":733,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-line-nothing-could-see","The Line Nothing Could See","Reviewing the reasoning under a refactor, not only the diff. Ask of every line what can observe it, and back each review claim with a test the author can run.","2026-07-07T22:43:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-line-nothing-could-see-hero.jpg",[679,628,734,377],"teaching",{"path":736,"title":737,"description":738,"date":739,"author":6,"image":740,"readingMinutes":388,"category":500,"project":422,"tags":741,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-long-way-round","The Long Way Round","The count a method computes reaches the screen not through its return value but by being written into a collection a client subscribes to, EkoLite's channel.","2026-07-20T11:05:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-long-way-round-hero.jpg",[514,619,378],{"path":743,"title":744,"description":745,"date":746,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":399,"category":400,"project":401,"tags":747,"draft":365,"series":406,"seriesOrder":580},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-page-that-existed-only-when-someone-linked-to-it","The Page That Existed Only When Someone Linked to It","Our blog vanished in production while passing every local check. How we found the cause, fixed it twice, and how the fix gave every page a twin.","2026-08-22T16:00:00.000Z",[403,404,405],{"path":749,"title":750,"description":751,"date":752,"author":6,"image":753,"readingMinutes":642,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":754,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-previews-that-served-production","The Previews That Served Production","Two weeks after the container that was not there, the same impossible error came back. The orphans were our own pull request previews. One diagnosis was wrong.","2026-07-31T17:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fpreviews-served-production-hero.jpg",[404,644,645,646],{"path":756,"title":757,"description":758,"date":759,"author":6,"image":760,"readingMinutes":431,"category":389,"project":501,"tags":761,"draft":369,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-release-is-the-acceptance-test","The Release Is the Acceptance Test","Not a green suite, not a good demo: a real version of a real package, live on npm, shipped by the tool. What red first tests proved, and what only reality did.","2026-07-21T17:35:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Frelease-acceptance-test-hero.jpg",[557,762,763,506],"dogfooding","acceptance-testing",{"path":765,"title":766,"description":767,"date":768,"author":6,"image":769,"readingMinutes":399,"category":362,"project":422,"tags":770,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-script-that-never-ran","The Script That Never Ran","Joining two abilities EkoLite already had, a method that runs and a runner that shells out, and proving the join with a nulled runner before any script exists.","2026-07-20T11:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-script-that-never-ran-hero.jpg",[377,378,771],"scriptrunner",{"path":773,"title":774,"description":775,"date":776,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":642,"category":400,"project":401,"tags":777,"draft":365,"series":406,"seriesOrder":388},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-small-things-the-crawler-notices","The Small Things the Crawler Notices","Speed is the part of findability you can measure on a laptop. Fonts and images we shipped without looking, an error page we did not have, and the numbers after.","2026-08-23T10:00:00.000Z",[403,404,778],"performance",{"path":780,"title":781,"description":782,"date":783,"author":6,"image":784,"readingMinutes":399,"category":362,"project":422,"tags":785,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-test-that-could-not-fail","The Test That Could Not Fail","A green test that stayed green when we deleted the behaviour it was named after, and the single blunt question that exposed it.","2026-07-20T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftest-that-could-not-fail-hero.jpg",[377,378,424],{"path":787,"title":788,"description":789,"date":790,"author":578,"image":791,"readingMinutes":388,"category":389,"project":792,"tags":793,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-website-that-told-the-same-story-twice","The Website That Told the Same Story Twice","Our home and story pages felt like one story across two screens. Rather than argue by taste, we modelled our words as data and asked a database one question.","2026-06-06","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fwebsite-same-story-twice-hero.jpg","The Website",[393,794,537,734],"content",{"path":796,"title":797,"description":798,"date":615,"author":6,"image":799,"readingMinutes":372,"category":362,"project":422,"tags":800,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-words-we-work-in","The Words We Work In","The vocabulary we test with, Nullable, embedded stub, stub object, output tracking, each grounded in real code so a review points at a line, never at taste.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-words-we-work-in-hero.jpg",[378,377,393,734],{"path":802,"title":803,"description":804,"date":790,"author":578,"image":805,"readingMinutes":431,"category":389,"project":792,"tags":806,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fthe-workflow-is-the-lesson","The Workflow Is the Lesson","We are moving our content out of a cloud CMS and into git. Why a school that teaches a keyboard first way of working should practise it in the open, and how.","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fworkflow-lesson-hero.png",[807,391,734,808],"workflow","accessibility",{"path":810,"title":811,"description":812,"date":813,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":388,"category":362,"project":371,"tags":814,"draft":365,"series":610,"seriesOrder":354},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftwenty-six-more-tests-four-fewer-behaviours","Twenty Six More Tests, Four Fewer Behaviours","Removing the mocks grew the suite from 44 tests to 70 and quietly deleted four behaviours, every one of them a failure path. Test count is not coverage.","2026-08-28T09:00:00.000Z",[377,378,379,609],{"path":816,"title":817,"description":818,"date":819,"author":6,"image":820,"readingMinutes":399,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":821,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftwo-hands-on-one-lever","Two Hands on One Lever","Our deploy failed with a deploy already in progress while the commit it wanted to ship was going live. Anatomy of a benign collision and a trigger safe to lose.","2026-07-23T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftwo-hands-on-one-lever-hero.jpg",[404,440,822],"observability",{"path":824,"title":825,"description":826,"date":827,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":399,"category":362,"project":371,"tags":828,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftwo-hundred-and-fourteen-undecided","Two Hundred and Fourteen Undecided","An accessibility scanner found three faults on the dojo, we fixed them, and the next run came back clean. The clean run was the dangerous one.","2026-08-22T12:00:00.000Z",[808,377,514,393],{"path":830,"title":831,"description":832,"date":833,"author":6,"image":834,"readingMinutes":407,"category":500,"project":371,"tags":835,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Ftwo-validators-one-gate","Two Validators, One Gate","Validating one request body twice, with a Fastify schema and again with Zod, is not double safety. The second gate is unreachable. One validator; Zod for types.","2026-07-07T22:06:46.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Ftwo-validators-one-gate-hero.jpg",[514,836,837],"validation","typescript",{"path":839,"title":840,"description":841,"date":842,"author":6,"image":843,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":371,"tags":844,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwe-are-all-doing-asynchronous-integration","We Are All Doing Asynchronous Integration","A continuous integration server is not continuous integration. The forge tests your work after you have moved on. Our build takes three minutes; no excuse.","2026-07-09T09:46:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fasynchronous-integration-hero.jpg",[392,404,439],{"path":846,"title":847,"description":848,"date":849,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":399,"category":400,"project":401,"tags":850,"draft":365,"series":406,"seriesOrder":399},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwe-promised-not-to-watch-then-we-needed-to-see","We Promised Not to Watch. Then We Needed to See.","Our privacy policy said no analytics, and it was true. Adding a page counter meant reopening that promise in public: what we chose, what we refused, one commit.","2026-08-24T10:00:00.000Z",[414,404,851],"analytics",{"path":853,"title":854,"description":855,"date":856,"author":6,"image":857,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":501,"tags":858,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-one-real-release-taught-us","What One Real Release Taught Us in an Afternoon","Two crashes and one near miss within minutes of touching the real GitHub, because we had refused to fake it. The race we never met, the merge that never came.","2026-07-21T17:30:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fone-real-release-hero.jpg",[557,859,378,506],"failure-modes",{"path":861,"title":862,"description":863,"date":864,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":388,"category":400,"project":401,"tags":865,"draft":365,"series":406,"seriesOrder":431},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-the-link-looks-like-before-anyone-clicks","What the Link Looks Like Before Anyone Clicks","A link to any page on our site showed up as a bare rectangle of text. The share image is part of the page, and the build now puts one on every route.","2026-08-22T22:00:00.000Z",[403,404,405],{"path":867,"title":868,"description":869,"date":870,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":388,"category":362,"project":371,"tags":871,"draft":365,"series":610,"seriesOrder":407},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-the-nullable-gave-back","What the Nullable Gave Back","One file, seven behaviours held fixed, the database swapped for a Nullable: about 180 times less time inside the tests, and coverage flat to two decimals.","2026-08-29T09:00:00.000Z",[377,378,379,609],{"path":873,"title":874,"description":875,"date":876,"author":6,"image":374,"readingMinutes":399,"category":400,"project":401,"tags":877,"draft":365,"series":406,"seriesOrder":642},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhat-we-count-and-what-we-refuse-to-know","What We Count, and What We Refuse to Know","Every system that holds anything about a visitor, in one table in the privacy policy. Writing it found a form that no longer existed and one that wrote twice.","2026-08-23T14:00:00.000Z",[414,404,851],{"path":879,"title":880,"description":881,"date":882,"author":6,"image":883,"readingMinutes":431,"category":500,"project":374,"tags":374,"draft":365,"series":374,"seriesOrder":374},"\u002Fblog\u002Fwhy-good-software-starts-with-the-right-questions","Why Good Software Starts with the Right Questions","Before writing a line of code, the most impactful thing a team can do is ask better questions. Discovery is not a phase to rush. It is the foundation.","2026-01-15T09:00:00.000Z","\u002Fimages\u002Fblog\u002Fright-questions-hero.jpg",1787861096092]