Writing Negative Route Tests in Rails 🚀

March 17, 2025

This morning, I received a great question from a reader about where to write negative route tests in Rails. Since it’s a topic that often comes up, I wanted to share my thoughts here.

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Why Negative Route Tests?

Negative route tests help ensure that invalid or unauthorized requests are properly handled, preventing unexpected behavior in production. They are a key part of achieving solid test coverage in any Rails application.

Where to Write Them

🔹 RSpec: Place them in spec/routing/ (e.g., spec/routing/users_routing_spec.rb). 🔹 Minitest: Add them in test/routes_test.rb.

Example Tests

To check if an undefined route correctly raises a RoutingError:

✅ Minitest:

test "should return 404 for undefined routes" do
  assert_raises(ActionController::RoutingError) do
    get '/nonexistent_path'
  end
end

✅ RSpec:

it "raises a routing error for undefined routes" do
  expect { get '/nonexistent_path' }.to raise_error(ActionController::RoutingError)
end

Additional Tips

✅ Test valid and invalid routes for complete coverage.

✅ Check restricted routes to ensure unauthorized users can’t access them.

✅ If you’re working solo, automate tests and document your process for scalability.

I love engaging with the dev community and helping others improve their test coverage. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out! 🚀

#Rails #Testing #RSpec #Minitest #SoftwareTesting #RubyOnRails