SATE-Laravel

Verification Gates

The SATE-Laravel Verification Gates Engine enforces a deterministic hierarchy of proof. No gate may be skipped, merged, or weakened.

ROLE: Static Verification Engine. Identity: Gatekeeper, not a fixer. 100% pass rate across all gates is required for "Gold Standard" status.

“A gate does not measure quality. It determines admissibility.”

01 — Mandatory Enforcement

G1

PSR-4 Identity Integrity

CODE: PSR4_IDENTITY_INTEGRITY

Purpose:

Every test class Composer cannot load is invisible to the runner. Identity-integrity failures stop downstream validation because there is nothing left to evaluate.

Admission Criteria:
  • → Composer PSR-4 autoload resolves the class declared in every test file
  • → Namespace declared in the file matches its on-disk path
Mandatory Rejection:
  • ✖ Classes silently skipped by Composer due to PSR-4 mismatch
  • ✖ Filename or directory casing diverges from the namespace
G2

Bootstrap Purity

CODE: BOOTSTRAP_PURITY_CONFIG_SET

Purpose:

Tests must not mutate process-global state in ways that bleed between runs. Six rules cover Config, env, INI, timezone, and superglobals.

Admission Criteria:
  • → Use the `config([...])` helper scoped to the test, never raw `Config::set(...)`
  • → No `putenv`, `ini_set`, or `date_default_timezone_set` in test bodies
  • → No direct mutation or `unset` of `$_ENV`, `$_SERVER`, `$_GET`, `$_POST`, `$_COOKIE`, `$_REQUEST`, `$_SESSION`
Mandatory Rejection:
  • ✖ BOOTSTRAP_PURITY_CONFIG_SET — `Config::set(...)` calls
  • ✖ BOOTSTRAP_PURITY_PUTENV — `putenv(...)` calls
  • ✖ BOOTSTRAP_PURITY_INI_SET — `ini_set(...)` calls
  • ✖ BOOTSTRAP_PURITY_TIMEZONE — `date_default_timezone_set(...)` calls
  • ✖ BOOTSTRAP_PURITY_SUPERGLOBALS — direct mutation of superglobals
  • ✖ BOOTSTRAP_PURITY_SUPERGLOBALS_UNSET — `unset($_ENV[...])` etc.
G3

Mock Discipline

CODE: FORBIDDEN_MOCK_TARGET

Purpose:

Tests may only mock external services. Mocking the system under test or fakes-by-default of core facades produces tests that prove nothing about real behavior.

Admission Criteria:
  • → Only mock classes whose namespace lives outside your `App\` PSR-4 root
  • → Use Laravel facade fakes (`Event::fake()`, `Queue::fake()`, …) sparingly and only with the corresponding `assert*` calls
Mandatory Rejection:
  • ✖ FORBIDDEN_MOCK_TARGET — `Mockery::mock(App\…)` or `Illuminate\` / `PHPUnit\` framework internals
  • ✖ FACADE_ANTI_GRAVITY — more than three core facades faked or mocked in one test
G4

Act Contract

CODE: ACT_ONCE_RULE

Purpose:

Each test performs exactly one primary Act. Multi-step tests hide which step actually drives the observable outcome and contaminate the engine's causal map.

Admission Criteria:
  • → One HTTP request, one job dispatch, one service-under-test method call per test
  • → Setup (factories, `actingAs`, fakes) does not count as an Act and may appear before
  • → Multi-step flows belong in NON-LEARNING / E2E tests outside the gate scope
Mandatory Rejection:
  • ✖ ACT_ONCE_RULE — Found N (N ≠ 1) primary Acts in a single test method
G5

Outcome Contract

CODE: OBSERVABLE_OUTCOME_REQUIRED

Purpose:

Every Act must produce an observable outcome the test directly asserts on — HTTP response, DB state change, dispatched job/event, faked-facade assertion, or a meaningful assertion on the Act's return value.

Admission Criteria:
  • → HTTP: `$response->assertStatus/assertJson/...`
  • → Database: `$this->assertDatabaseHas/Missing/Count`
  • → Facade fakes paired with their `assert*` calls (`Event::fake()` → `Event::assertDispatched()`)
  • → Unit: assertion taking the Act's output as an argument
Mandatory Rejection:
  • ✖ OBSERVABLE_OUTCOME_REQUIRED — Act present but no qualifying assertion observes its effect

02 — The Ordered Chain

Gates are ordered to protect later analytical reasoning. Earlier failures invalidate all subsequent verification attempts.

“If early trust is broken, nothing later can be believed.”

03 — Output Contract

Engine Final Response:

PASS
PSR4_IDENTITY_INTEGRITY
BOOTSTRAP_PURITY_CONFIG_SET
FORBIDDEN_MOCK_TARGET
ACT_ONCE_RULE
OBSERVABLE_OUTCOME_REQUIRED

The Engine does not explain fixes or suggest improvements. It reflects technical truth through absolute rejection.