Glossary¶

Black box : A test boundary that uses public inputs and outputs without importing private implementation details.

Consumer project : A temporary project directory containing dbwarden configuration, model files, migrations, and database state.

Drift : A semantic difference between expected model state and observed database state.

Provider : A lifecycle object that starts, resets, diagnoses, and stops a disposable database.

Reference schema : A checked-in model fixture plus expected table and index metadata.

Round trip : Generate migrations, apply them, reverse engineer the live database, reload generated models, and require convergence.

Enforcement : Evidence that the server refuses a write the declared constraints forbid, as opposed to evidence that the constraint appears in a catalog.

Regeneration silence : The requirement that regenerating from unchanged models produces no migration. Its absence is schema churn: correct SQL, applied forever.

Semantic snapshot : A normalized representation of live database objects used for comparison.

Experimental cell : A matrix test that runs and retains evidence but is allowed to fail because a known package compatibility issue exists.

Fast tier : Tests that run without Docker, using SQLite or generated artifacts only. Selected by pytest -m "not integration and not slow".

Integration tier : Tests that require a container from infrastructure/providers. Selected by DBWARDEN_HARNESS_RUN_INTEGRATION=1 pytest -m integration.

Slow tier : Tests that require a container and significant time. Selected by adding -m slow explicitly.

MCP server : An interactive testing server that provides workspace management, warm connection pools, and bug report collection for consumer workflows.