No tests means every deployment is a leap of faith.
Zero test coverage creates deployment anxiety: every change might break something, and there's no automated way to know. Adding tests to an existing codebase is strategic — you don't need 100% coverage, you need coverage on the critical paths that matter most.
Application with no automated tests — deployments are stressful, bugs reach production regularly, and the team is scared to refactor or add features
100% test coverage is not the goal. The goal is: tests that provide confidence that the critical paths work before deploying.
The highest-value tests for a SaaS application:
API integration tests: Test the actual API routes with real (test) database queries. These tests catch the most production bugs:
test('POST /api/projects creates a project for authenticated user', async () => {
const response = await request(app)
.post('/api/projects')
.set('Authorization', `Bearer ${testUser.token}`)
.send({ name: 'Test Project' });
expect(response.status).toBe(201);
expect(response.body.name).toBe('Test Project');
});
Authentication tests: Test that protected routes reject unauthenticated requests, that role checks work, and that authorization is correct.
Business logic unit tests: Pure functions that calculate prices, validate business rules, or transform data. Fast; no database required.
Critical user flow E2E tests (optional): Playwright tests that run against a real browser. Signup, onboarding, checkout. High confidence; slow to run; brittle to UI changes.
The testing stack for Next.js:
- Vitest for unit and integration tests (faster than Jest; compatible with Vitest's ESM support)
- Testing Library for React component tests
- Playwright for end-to-end tests
The CI configuration:
Run tests on every PR. A failed test blocks the PR from merging. This is the enforcement mechanism that makes tests valuable.
Test coverage on the critical paths — API endpoints, business logic, and authentication — with CI running tests on every pull request
Vitest
setup with database test utilities
API route integration tests
for all critical endpoints
Auth boundary tests
(protected routes, authorization)
Business logic unit tests
GitHub Actions CI
to run tests on pull requests
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
Test coverage on the critical paths — API endpoints, business logic, and authentication — with CI running tests on every pull request
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
Test coverage scope is the critical path list. Audit the most important paths, write tests for those, set up CI. Fixed-price.
Questions, answered.
Both serve different purposes. Automated tests catch regressions on every PR (fast, consistent). QA catches UX issues and edge cases (slower, more thorough). Start with automated tests on the critical paths.
Coverage % is a lagging indicator. Better metric: "Are we confident that the critical paths work?" Target: every API endpoint has at least one happy-path and one error-path test. Coverage % will follow.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.