Developer
How do you test a smart contract system before it holds real value?
The audit is the last step, not the test plan.
The answer
Four layers, in this order: unit tests for the logic, fork tests against real mainnet state and real integrations, invariant or property tests that assert what must never be true regardless of input, and a rehearsed deployment — including the rollback — on a testnet with the same key-management arrangement production will use. The audit comes after all four, because an audit of code you have not exercised spends the auditor’s time on defects your own tests should have found.
What invariant tests catch that unit tests do not
Unit tests confirm the cases you thought of. Invariants assert the properties that must hold across every case — total supply never exceeds the cap, no account balance goes negative, restricted transfers never settle. Fuzzing those properties finds the input sequences nobody wrote a test for, which is where value-holding systems actually break.
Rehearsing the deployment, not just the code
Most incidents in the first week are operational rather than logical: the wrong constructor argument, an upgrade key held by a departed engineer, a deployment nobody can reverse. Rehearse the deploy and the rollback with the same signers and the same approval policy production will use — that rehearsal has caught more real problems in this practice’s engagements than any single test suite.
Talk to the practice
Tell us what you are trying to build and what has to be true for it to work.
Contact