Software Testing Methodology

Overview

The Plant Adaptation Hub backend employs a rigorous, multi-layered testing strategy to ensure system reliability, security, and data integrity. Our comprehensive test suite demonstrates the robustness of the platform through automated testing of all critical components.

Test Results Summary

Quantitative Metrics

Total Tests Executed: 38
Tests Passed: 38 (100% success rate)
Test Execution Time: 4.53 seconds
Average Test Duration: 119 milliseconds
Test Coverage: Comprehensive across authentication, API endpoints, database, and external services

Test Categories

The test suite is organized into three primary categories:

Integration Tests (16 tests) - End-to-end API validation with real database.
Unit Tests (22 tests) - Individual component validation using mocks.
Live Deployment Tests (2 tests) - Production environment validation via https://www.camelina-hub.org.

Detailed Test Analysis

Integration Testing Layer

Live Deployment Integration Tests

Test Case	Duration	Description
`test_studies_list_live`	1.299s	Validates study listing functionality in production environment
`test_health_check_live`	0.029s	Verifies health monitoring endpoint availability

Real Database API Integration Tests

Test Case	Duration	Description
`test_studies_endpoint_real_db`	0.236s	Validates study data retrieval with actual database
`test_assays_endpoint_real_db`	0.096s	Tests assay data retrieval and filtering
`test_blast_search_mixed`	0.071s	Validates BLAST sequence search with mixed inputs
`test_get_ontologies_real_db`	0.161s	Tests ontology term lookup and matching
`test_health_endpoint_public`	0.058s	Verifies public health check accessibility
`test_invalid_token_rejection`	0.040s	Ensures proper rejection of invalid authentication tokens

Unit Testing Layer

Authentication System Tests

Test Case	Duration	Description
`test_root_endpoint`	0.028s	Validates API root endpoint accessibility
`test_auth_missing_credentials`	0.028s	Tests authentication with missing credentials
`test_auth_invalid_credentials`	0.029s	Validates rejection of incorrect credentials
`test_auth_success`	0.041s	Tests successful authentication flow
`test_auth_guest_user`	0.040s	Validates guest user authentication
`test_auth_admin_expiry`	0.320s	Tests admin token expiry configuration
`test_auth_server_error`	0.029s	Validates error handling during authentication failures

Configuration Validation Tests

Test Case	Duration	Description
`test_secret_key_loaded`	0.002s	Validates secure key loading
`test_database_config_loaded`	0.002s	Tests database configuration parsing
`test_minio_config_loaded`	0.002s	Validates MinIO storage configuration
`test_jwt_config_loaded`	0.002s	Tests JWT token configuration
`test_testing_environment`	0.002s	Validates test environment setup

Database Connection Tests

Test Case	Duration	Description
`test_get_db_connection_success`	0.002s	Validates successful database connection
`test_get_db_connection_retry_logic`	0.005s	Tests connection retry mechanism
`test_get_db_connection_max_retries_exceeded`	0.003s	Validates graceful failure after max retries
`test_get_user_with_db_error`	0.002s	Tests user retrieval error handling

Token Validation Tests

Test Case	Duration	Description
`test_validate_token_endpoint_missing_token`	0.031s	Tests token validation without token
`test_validate_token_endpoint_valid_token_guest`	0.029s	Validates guest token verification
`test_validate_token_endpoint_expired_token`	0.030s	Tests expired token rejection
`test_validate_token_endpoint_disabled_guest`	0.029s	Validates disabled guest account handling
`test_token_required_decorator_options`	0.028s	Tests CORS preflight request handling
`test_token_validation_malformed_token`	0.029s	Validates rejection of malformed tokens

Performance Analysis

Test Execution Efficiency

Fastest Test: 2ms (configuration validation tests)
Slowest Test: 1.299s (live deployment integration test)
Average Test Speed: 119ms
95th Percentile: 236ms

Critical Path Performance

Authentication Flow: Complete authentication test suite executes in 0.525s.
Database Operations: Connection and query tests complete in 0.012s.
API Endpoints: Full integration test suite completes in 1.774s.

Testing Methodology

Test Architecture

The testing architecture is built upon the pytest framework and follows a modular design:

Mocking: unittest.mock is utilized in unit tests to isolate service logic from external dependencies (PostgreSQL, MinIO, and Subprocess calls).
Environment Isolation: A dedicated conftest.py ensures that test environment variables (JWT secrets, test database credentials) are used exclusively during execution.
JWT Verification: Real token signing and verification logic are tested to ensure that the @secure and @token_required decorators correctly enforce Role-Based Access Control (RBAC).
E2E Validation: Live deployment tests utilize the requests library to perform real-world handshakes with the production API, ensuring that network configurations and SSL certificates are valid.

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