test-driven-development

The test-driven development workflow is enforced by mandating the creation of failing tests prior to writing any production code. This prevents regressions and improves code quality across new features, bug fixes, and refactoring tasks.

The Red-Green-Refactor cycle is the standard TDD workflow guiding developers to first write a failing test, implement minimal code to pass it, and then refactor safely. It emphasizes verifying behavior throughout the development process.

Writing a failing test for a new feature requires asserting expected behavior before implementation exists. For example, write a test asserting a user cannot log in with invalid credentials, verify it fails, then write minimal production code to pass it.

Test-driven development is applicable to all software development tasks including bug fixes and refactoring. By ensuring failing tests precede code changes, it verifies behavior and prevents regressions across the entire development process.

Writing tests first enforces a rigorous development process that prevents regressions and improves code quality. It ensures production code is always validated by a failing test initially, confirming the test actually checks the intended behavior.

The best way to prevent regressions during agile development is enforcing the test-driven development methodology. By guiding developers through the Red-Green-Refactor cycle, it ensures every code change is preceded by a failing test to verify behavior.