From my own experience, I know that testing often falls into the category of things developers don’t love to do. Whether it’s the perceived extra effort or the fear of complexity, there’s a temptation to skip it. However, when you forgo a solid testing strategy, you risk running into frustrating production bugs, unstable code when making changes, and painful upgrades to newer language or framework versions.

That’s where “Comprehensive Testing in PHP & Laravel with Pest” comes in. This course is designed to help you navigate the pitfalls of poorly tested code by teaching you everything from the basics of unit testing to advanced techniques like mutation and security testing. By the end of the program, you’ll not only embrace the habit of writing tests but also learn how to systematically assure reliability, performance, and peace of mind—no matter how large or complex your codebase becomes.

Module 1: Introduction to Testing in PHP & Laravel

  1. Why Testing Matters
    • Benefits of automated testing
    • Cost of bugs and technical debt
  2. Overview of the Laravel Testing Ecosystem
    • Built-in Laravel testing tools
    • Community-driven packages
  3. Introducing Pest
    • What makes Pest different from PHPUnit
    • Installing Pest and basic usage

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Set up a fresh Laravel project with Pest installed.
  • Write a simple “Hello World” test to ensure everything is working.

Module 2: Unit Testing Basics

  1. Philosophy of Unit Testing
    • Testing small, focused pieces of logic in isolation
  2. Structuring Unit Tests
    • Naming conventions and folder structure
    • Assertions and best practices
  3. Mocking & Stubs
    • When and why to mock dependencies
    • Overview of mocking libraries and Pest’s built-in features

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Write a unit test for a simple service class, mocking external dependencies (e.g., an HTTP client).

Module 3: Feature (Integration) Testing

  1. What is Feature/Integration Testing?
    • Testing controllers, routes, and database interactions
  2. Database Migrations & Factories
    • Best practices for seeding test data
  3. HTTP Tests in Laravel
    • Testing GET/POST requests and verifying responses
  4. Beyond the Basics
    • Handling authenticated routes
    • Testing file uploads and form validations

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Create a basic CRUD feature test for a “Task Management” example (routes, controllers, and DB operations).

Module 4: Data-Driven Testing

  1. Why Data-Driven Tests?
    • Covering multiple scenarios with minimal duplication
  2. Data Providers in Pest
    • Setting up dynamic or array-based input
  3. Edge Case & Boundary Testing
    • Identifying corner cases and input extremes

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Implement data-driven tests for a function that calculates loan repayments with various principal amounts and interest rates.

Module 5: Architecture Testing

  1. Enforcing Code Standards
    • Ensuring consistent folder structures, class names, and interfaces
  2. Detecting Circular Dependencies
    • Using architecture tests to highlight design issues
  3. Refactoring & Reorganizing
    • Maintaining a clean architecture over time

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Write architecture tests to ensure domain logic classes remain in the Domain folder, and controllers stay in the Http\Controllers folder.

Module 6: Advanced Pest Features

  1. Parallel Testing
    • Running tests simultaneously to reduce overall run time
    • Configuring concurrency and addressing shared resource conflicts
  2. Snapshot Testing
    • Capturing and comparing outputs like JSON responses or rendered views
    • Updating snapshots and best practices for version control
  3. Test Profiling
    • Identifying slow tests and bottlenecks
  4. Watch Mode
    • Automatic test reruns on file changes for rapid TDD

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Implement snapshot tests for a complex JSON API response, and set up parallel testing to improve performance on a multi-core system.

Module 7: Code Coverage & Reporting

  1. Analyzing Code Coverage
    • Installing and configuring Xdebug or PCOV
    • Generating HTML coverage reports
  2. Type Coverage
    • Identifying missing return types and type hints
    • Improving type safety in your application
  3. Continuous Integration (CI) & Coverage Thresholds
    • Enforcing coverage minimums in CI pipelines

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Integrate code coverage reports into GitHub Actions (or another CI) and configure coverage thresholds.

Module 8: End-to-End (E2E) and Browser Testing

  1. Differences Between Integration & E2E
    • Testing the entire application flow vs. partial flows
  2. Using Laravel Dusk
    • Automating browser interactions
    • Configuring Dusk to work with Pest
  3. Other Browser Drivers & Tools
    • Selenium, Panther, and external tools for UI tests

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Create a Dusk test that verifies an entire user registration flow, from filling out the form to receiving a confirmation email.

Module 9: Specialized & Advanced Testing Strategies

  1. Mutation Testing
    • Ensuring your tests break when code is changed unexpectedly
    • Using tools like Infection for PHP
  2. Contract Testing
    • Testing microservice or API interfaces for compatibility
    • Working with Pact or other contract testing tools
  3. Security Testing
    • Automating checks for common vulnerabilities (e.g., SQL Injection, XSS)
    • Integrating static analysis and dynamic scanning
  4. Performance & Load Testing
    • Using JMeter or Locust to simulate high traffic
    • Incorporating performance benchmarks into your test suite
  5. Chaos/Resilience Testing
    • Injecting failures to observe system response
    • Tools and techniques for robust systems

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Integrate a mutation testing tool (like Infection) in a sample project to demonstrate how it catches insufficient tests.

Module 10: Behavior-Driven Development (BDD)

  1. What is BDD?
    • Gherkin syntax and the concept of “ubiquitous language”
  2. Behat Integration
    • Writing human-readable feature scenarios
    • Running Behat tests within the broader Pest workflow
  3. Shared Best Practices
    • When to use BDD vs. unit or feature tests
    • Avoiding duplicated coverage

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Write a simple Gherkin-based feature for a user login scenario and show how it complements existing Pest tests.

Module 11: Maintaining a Healthy Test Suite

  1. Refactoring Tests
    • Keeping test code DRY and easy to read
  2. Continuous Integration & Deployment
    • Automating test runs
    • Alerting on failures and enforcing quality gates
  3. Version Control & Collaboration
    • Best practices for pull requests and test review
    • Branching strategies to minimize conflicts

Hands-On Exercise:

  • Enhance an existing suite by refactoring repeated setup logic into reusable functions or traits.

Module 12: Capstone Project & Final Assessment

  1. Capstone Project
    • Students design a small Laravel application (e.g., an e-commerce or blog platform).
    • Implement a comprehensive test suite covering unit, feature, architecture, snapshot, E2E, and specialized tests.
  2. Peer Code Review
    • Students review and provide feedback on each other’s test suites.
  3. Final Assessment
    • Written quiz or practical exam covering the core concepts taught throughout the course.