# Test First

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/providers/test-first/  
**Website:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development  
**APIs profiled:** 5

A software development approach where tests are written before the implementation code, ensuring code quality and driving design decisions through test requirements. Test-first development is the foundational principle behind test-driven development (TDD) and behavior-driven development (BDD), where the specification of expected behavior is captured in executable tests before any production code is written.

## Kin Score — 26.6 / 100 (thin)

Scored 2026-08-25 under rubric 0.14.0. Trend: flat (+0.0 from 26.6).

| Facet | Score |
|---|---|
| Discoverability | 81.5 |
| Contract Quality | 37.3 |
| Governance | 25.0 |
| Contract Governance | 25.0 |
| Operational Transparency | 7.9 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 9.5 |
| Commercial Clarity | 15.8 |
| Access Clarity | 15.8 |

## Agent readiness — 15.5 (agent-aware)

| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Spec Presence | yes |
| Agentic Access | no |
| Reversibility Documented | no |
| MCP Server | no |
| Auth Clarity | no |
| Idempotency | no |
| Error Semantics | no |
| OpenAPI Examples | no |
| Rate Limit Signal | documented |
| Event Surface Described | no |
| Agent Skills | no |
| Well Known Catalog | no |
| Consent Identity | no |
| Agent Card | no |
| Dry Run Mode | no |
| Delegated Identity | no |
| Protected Resource Metadata | no |
| Dynamic Client Registration | no |
| Agentic Commerce | no |

## Access

Freemium — onboarding: unknown, pricing: freemium, trial: no (confidence: medium).

## APIs (5)

- **Cucumber API** — REST API and tooling for Cucumber BDD framework supporting test-first development with Gherkin feature files, scenario definitions, and step implementations.
- **Pact Broker API** — REST API for Pact Broker contract testing service, enabling consumer-driven contract testing where consumer tests define the API contract before providers implement it.
- **Stoplight API** — API design-first platform enabling teams to write API specifications before implementation, supporting test-first development with mock servers, contract testing, and API style ...
- **Microcks API** — Open-source cloud-native tool for API mocking and contract testing, supporting test-first development by generating mocks from OpenAPI, Postman, and gRPC specifications.
- **Dredd API** — Command-line HTTP API testing framework that validates API implementations against API Blueprint or OpenAPI descriptions, enabling test-first API development.

## Security (1)

- **Test First Domain Security** — TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

## Plans (1)

- **Test First Plans Pricing**

## Use cases (5)

- **API-First Design** — Write OpenAPI specifications and generate tests from them before building the implementation.
- **Consumer-Driven Contract Testing** — API consumers publish test expectations that API providers must verify in their CI pipelines.
- **Behavior-Driven Development** — Use Gherkin feature files to define expected system behavior before writing implementation.
- **Parallel Development** — Enable frontend and backend teams to develop in parallel using mock servers from specifications.
- **Specification Compliance** — Validate that API implementations comply with their published specifications using test-first assertions.

## Tags

Behavior-Driven Development, Best Practices, Methodology, Software Design, Software Development, Testing

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/providers/test-first/). Scores are computed from the provider's own public artifacts under a published rubric.