Test with confidence, code with clarity

Your home for mastering Test-Driven Development through real-world katas and expert guidance.

TDD Buddy Logo
Latest The Bounded Context Is the Scope the Agent Actually Needs

Kata Catalog

Practice TDD with a curated set of real-world katas, each with clear requirements and test cases.

Browse Katas

Guides & References

Learn best practices, naming conventions, and advanced TDD techniques from industry experts.

Explore Guides

Interactive Learning

Discover the TDD Gears model and learn how to apply TDD principles in real-world scenarios.

Learn More

Why TDD Matters More in the AI Era

The bar for "good tests" just moved. Agents made it non-optional.

  • The whole-repo agent is a cross-context bulldozer. Given free rein, the agent's incentive is uniformity. Uniformity across bounded contexts is not cleanup; it is the collapse of the domain distinctions the contexts existed to preserve.
  • The same word means two things and that is correct. Customer in Billing is a party with a payment method. Customer in Support is a party with an issue history. Same word, two concepts, two owners. Merging them is a domain regression.
  • The agent's scope should be a context, not a repository. One context at a time, with its own vocabulary, its own builders, its own tests, its own bounded surface. The scope is the constraint that keeps the agent from doing damage across the seam.
  • Cross-context changes belong to a human. A rename, a shared concept, a promoted invariant: those are architecture decisions. The agent can propose them. The human owns the decision to unify or keep separate.

Read the argument: The Bounded Context Is the Scope the Agent Actually Needs

The Bar Moved

Old bar

Tests exist and pass. Good enough for humans with context.

New bar

Scenario names · builders · domain types · ubiquitous language. The test suite is the interface agents operate against.

TDD Gears

Shift gears based on context, not habit

TDD Gears model showing Low, Medium, High, and Reverse gears for test-driven development

Low Gear

New territory. Build context. Small steps. Learn the shape of the problem before solving it.

Medium Gear

Patterns emerge. Apply design principles. Let the tests guide you toward better abstractions.

High Gear

Known patterns. Follow existing architecture. Move fast because the structure is already proven.

Reverse Gear

Wrong direction. Back up. Delete the test. Try a different approach. This isn't failure — it's steering.