The Code Review Inquisition: Where Are The Tests?
Description
A four-panel meme contrasting the cartoon character Dora the Explorer with Pepe the Frog to illustrate a painful code review scenario. The text is in Russian. In the top-left panel, a pleasant-looking Dora asks, 'Где тесты в пулл реквесте?' (Where are the tests in the pull request?). In the top-right, a sad Pepe the Frog quietly admits, 'У меня нет тестов' (I don't have tests). In the bottom-left panel, Dora cheerfully encourages, 'Громче!' (Louder!). This escalates in the final panel, where an enraged, distorted Pepe yells, 'У МЕНЯ НЕТ РАБОЧИХ ТЕСТОВ В ПУЛЛ РЕКВЕСТЕ!!!!' (I HAVE NO WORKING TESTS IN THE PULL REQUEST!!!!). The meme humorously captures the shame and frustration of a developer being called out for not having tests, and the amplified pain of admitting the tests they do have are broken. The format cleverly uses Dora's child-like insistence to push the developer to a breaking point
Comments
8Comment deleted
A pull request without tests is just a strongly worded suggestion
Our CI bot’s version of “LOUDER!” is tagging @channel, slapping a “legacy” label on your test-less PR, and scheduling you for the 2 a.m. prod deploy so you can run your “unit tests” live like it’s 2009
The tests are in a separate PR that I'll definitely submit after this one gets merged, right next to the documentation I've been meaning to write since 2019
The tests exist - they're just in the same state as the PR description: TODO
The progression from 'no tests' to 'no WORKING tests' perfectly captures that special moment in code review when you realize the PR author not only skipped TDD, but their existing test suite has been silently failing for weeks. It's the architectural equivalent of discovering your smoke detectors don't have batteries - during a fire. Senior engineers know this escalation well: first you're annoyed about missing coverage, then you discover the tests that DO exist are either flaky, testing the wrong thing, or worse - passing while the code is broken. At that point, you're not just reviewing code anymore; you're conducting software archaeology to figure out when the test suite became decorative rather than functional
When your PR answers “Where are the tests?” with “None that work,” you’ve accidentally submitted an ADR titled “Production is our test suite.”
Skipping tests is TDD backwards: Test-Driven Deployment, where prod data mocks nothing and flakes eternally
Nothing screams enterprise agility like a PR template requiring tests paired with a CI job running npm test || true