How do I install the Test Smell Detection Claude Code skill?

Install via the ClaudSkills desktop app (one click) or copy SKILL.md from the source repository to ~/.claude/skills/test-smell-detection/SKILL.md and restart Claude Code. Both flows are detailed at https://claudskills.com/install/.

Is this skill free to install?

Yes. ClaudSkills is an open registry — every skill keeps its source repository's license, and manual install via copy is free. ClaudSkills Pro ($9/mo, $79/yr, or $149 one-time) adds one-click install via the desktop app and a multi-signal Quality Score.

ClaudSkills / Engineering / testing

Test Smell Detection

Category: Engineering · Sub-category: testing · Last updated: 2026-05-24

type:audit type:review

Deep formal test smell audit based on academic research taxonomy (testsmells.org). Detects 19 categorized smell types — conditional logic, mystery guests, sensitive equality, eager tests, and more — with calibrated severity and research-backed remediation. Use for comprehensive test suite health assessments. For a quick pragmatic review, use test-anti-patterns instead. DO NOT USE FOR: writing new tests (use writing-mstest-tests), evaluating assertion quality specifically (use assertion-quality), or finding test duplication and boilerplate (use exp-test-maintainability).

From the source SKILL.md

Deep formal audit of test code using an academic test smell taxonomy. Detects symptoms of bad design or implementation decisions that make tests harder to understand, more fragile, less effective at catching bugs, or more expensive to maintain. Produces a severity-ranked report with specific locations and actionable fixes.

What this skill does

Test Smell Detection is a community-contributed Claude Code skill in the testing sub-category. It ships as a SKILL.md file that Claude Code auto-discovers under ~/.claude/skills/test-smell-detection/ and loads when your prompt matches the skill's trigger.

Who uses this skill

The Test Smell Detection Claude Code skill is built for software engineers, backend developers, full-stack teams, and technical leads building and maintaining production systems. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 70,000+ SKILL.md files for Anthropic's Claude Code agent and the wider Claude ecosystem (Claude API, Claude Agent SDK).

How to install

Free

Manual install (2 steps)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/test-smell-detection
curl -L https://claudskills.com/skills/test-smell-detection/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/test-smell-detection/SKILL.md

Or just download SKILL.md directly and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/test-smell-detection/. Claude Code auto-discovers it on next session.

Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/test-smell-detection/SKILL.md on macOS/Linux, or %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\test-smell-detection\SKILL.md on Windows. See the full install guide for step-by-step instructions.

Pro

One-click install via the desktop app

The ClaudSkills desktop app installs any skill directly into ~/.claude/skills/ with one click — no terminal required. Pro starts at $9/mo or $149 lifetime.

Pro

For the full experience including quality scoring and one-click install features for each skill — upgrade to Pro.

See pricing → Download desktop app

Attribution & license

Source: https://github.com/dotnet/skills/blob/HEAD/plugins/dotnet-test/skills/test-smell-detection/SKILL.md
License: MIT
Author: dotnet

Cite this skill

If you reference this skill in a blog post, paper, or documentation, you can cite it as:

APA

dotnet. (2026). Test Smell Detection [Claude Code skill]. ClaudSkills. https://claudskills.com/skills/test-smell-detection/

BibTeX

@misc{test-smell-detection-2026,
  author    = {dotnet},
  title     = {Test Smell Detection [Claude Code skill]},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {ClaudSkills},
  url       = {https://claudskills.com/skills/test-smell-detection/}
}

Embed this skill

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Badge

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