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The goal

I wanted lightweight regression (“canary”) tests for core admin flows so changes don’t silently break the app.

These tests are intentionally shallow:

  • sign in as admin
  • hit the route
  • assert the response

That’s it.

What I covered

I added smoke tests for:

  • admin dashboard root
  • users
  • coaches
  • pending coaches
  • coach details

What broke (and why that’s a win)

While adding the coach details canary, the admin dashboard exposed real-world breakpoints:

  • missing or renamed associations caused query failures
  • optional features (like profile photos via Active Storage) could break rendering in some environments

Instead of letting admin pages crash, I added safe fallbacks so the dashboard still renders even when optional dependencies or associations aren’t available.

What’s next

Next up is a non-admin access denial canary, then deployment behind a subdomain so I can start sharing real progress regularly.

Updated: