Testing

package:daravel_test drives your application without opening sockets:

(await client.get('/api/posts'))
    .assertOk()
    .assertJsonPath('data.0.title', 'Hello')
    .assertJsonPath('meta.total', 1);

(await client.post(
  '/api/posts',
  json: {'title': 'x'},
)).assertUnauthorized().assertJsonPath('message', 'Unauthenticated.');

(await client.get('/api/posts/99')).assertNotFound();

• TestClient(app) with actingAs(user), withToken(token), withHeaders, withoutExceptionHandling().
• TestResponse assertions: status helpers, assertJson, assertExactJson, assertJsonPath, assertJsonStructure, assertJsonValidationErrors, headers.
• refreshDatabase(createApp) runs each test in a transaction that is rolled back (Laravel's RefreshDatabase); assertDatabaseHas / assertDatabaseMissing / assertDatabaseCount.
• Fakes: Event.fake(), Queue.fake(), Storage.fake(), with assertDispatched, assertPushed, ...
• Time: freezeTime(), travel(duration), travelTo(time); domain time reads Clock.now().
• Architecture: expectRegistryComplete() and lints via dartisan lint.

Run the suite with dartisan test (--coverage writes coverage/).

In process or over a socket#

TestClient calls Application.handle directly: fast, and enough for most tests. What dart:io itself does to a response (default headers, HEAD, Content-Length, compression) only shows on a real socket, so the same tests can run through a real ServerEngine on a loopback port:

DARAVEL_TEST_TRANSPORT=socket dart test      # every TestClient in the suite

final client = TestClient(app, transport: TestTransport.socket);  // one client

The application sees the same request either way (host localhost, the same JSON, form and multipart bytes), actingAs still works, redirects are not followed and gzip bodies are not unpacked. Two things stay in process: withoutExceptionHandling() (an exception cannot cross a socket) and headers HttpClient cannot send (non-ASCII values, as in fuzzing). Under refreshDatabase the server runs inside the test's transaction. Running the suite both ways in CI catches what in-process tests cannot see.

Conformance tests#

package:daravel_test/conformance.dart exposes Laravel 12's wire contracts as matchers, so an application can prove it still speaks Laravel:

import 'package:daravel_test/conformance.dart';

expect(response.json, isLaravelValidationError({'email': ['The email field is required.']}));
expect(response.json, isLaravelErrorBody(LaravelContract.unauthenticated));
expect(token, matches(LaravelContract.sanctumPlainTextToken));
expect(body, isLaravelLengthAwarePaginator());

New projects include test/conformance/ and dart_test.yaml; run them with dartisan test --conformance.