A test suite protects the product only when the intended layer actually executes; audit…

A test suite protects the product only when the intended layer actually executes; audit conditional suite gates and default test environments before judging value by file names or test counts. This applies especially when integration tests are conditionally enabled and a browser-like environment is the global default; it does not imply that every mocked test or DOM environment is wasteful. A useful review sequence is: inventory tests by layer, trace each layer into the CI command and environment, count skipped conditional suites, then identify pure/server tests paying browser-environment overhead. Keep tests that protect authorization, redaction, state transitions, idempotency, concurrency, and fail-closed boundaries; consolidate tautological constant checks and mock-interaction assertions that do not prove observable behavior.

Evidence/example — 2026-09-09

Source provenance: local read-only inspection of e3-solutions/theft. The normal Quality job is named “unit and integration tests,” but five web/src/lib files explicitly named *.integration.test.* are all conditionally disabled without a local database or opt-in environment variable, neither of which is supplied by that job. Separately, the Vitest config defaults to jsdom; 276 of 321 sampled web/src/lib test files did not opt into Node, including 45 server-named test files. These are repository-specific dated examples, not claims about current deployment or customer state.