Testing

SurrealKit includes a testing framework that lets you write declarative test suites for your SurrealDB schema. Tests run against an isolated ephemeral database per suite, so they are safe to run in any environment without affecting persistent data.

Running tests

surrealkit test

SurrealKit reads all suite files from database/tests/suites/*.toml, runs them in parallel (configurable), and exits non-zero if any case fails.

Project structure

database/tests/
├── config.toml          # global defaults
└── suites/
    ├── security.toml
    └── api.toml

Global config

database/tests/config.toml sets defaults shared across all suites:

[defaults]
timeout_ms = 10000
base_url = "http://localhost:8000"

[actors.root]
kind = "root"

Test types

SurrealKit supports five test types, specified via the kind field on each test case.

sql_expect

Runs a SurrealQL statement and asserts whether it succeeds or fails:

[[cases]]
name = "guest_cannot_create_order"
kind = "sql_expect"
actor = "guest"
sql = "CREATE order CONTENT { total: 10 };"
allow = false
error_contains = "permission"

Optional assertions check the returned data:

[[cases]]
name = "user_sees_own_profile"
kind = "sql_expect"
actor = "user_alice"
sql = "SELECT * FROM user WHERE id = $auth.id;"
allow = true

[[cases.assertions]]
path = "0.id"
equals_auth = "$auth.id"

permissions_matrix

Validates that a single actor has the expected create / select / update / delete permissions on a table or record:

[[cases]]
name = "reader_cannot_modify_orders"
kind = "permissions_matrix"
actor = "reader"
table = "order"
record_id = "order:test"

[[cases.rules]]
action = "select"
allow = true

[[cases.rules]]
action = "update"
allow = false
error_contains = "permission"

schema_metadata

Asserts structural facts about the schema: that a field exists with a given type, that an index is defined, and so on.

schema_behavior

Tests computed fields, functions, and record relations by asserting on the values returned after specific operations.

api_request

Tests HTTP API endpoints, useful when your SurrealDB instance exposes a custom API layer:

[[cases]]
name = "orders_endpoint_returns_200"
kind = "api_request"
actor = "root"
method = "GET"
path = "/api/orders"
expected_status = 200

[[cases.body_assertions]]
path = "0.id"
exists = true

Actors

Each test case runs as a named actor with a specific authentication method. Actors are defined in config.toml or at the suite level.

[actors.user_alice]
kind = "record"
access = "app_access"

[actors.user_alice.signin_params]
email = "alice@example.com"
password = "secret"

[actors.tenant_a]
kind = "headers"
headers = { "x-tenant-id" = "tenant_a" }

Filtering

Debugging

Next steps

• CI / CD: integrate tests into automated pipelines with GitHub Actions and Docker Compose