Why is polling better than setTimeout in tests?

Polling waits only as long as necessary for a condition to be met, whereas setTimeout waits for a fixed period regardless of whether the state is ready, leading to unnecessarily slow or flaky tests.

Does this skill work with any testing framework?

Yes, the core patterns are generic and can be implemented in any language supported by Claude Code, including TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, and Go.

When should I still use an arbitrary timeout?

Fixed timeouts should only be used when testing actual timing-based behavior, such as verifying debounce intervals or throttle limits, and should always be documented.

How does this improve CI/CD performance?

It speeds up pipelines by allowing tests to proceed the millisecond a condition is met, instead of idling for the duration of a conservative sleep timer often used to avoid race conditions.

Condition-Based Waiting

Name: Condition-Based Waiting
Author: franroa

byfranroa

Security & Testing

Eliminates flaky tests and race conditions by replacing arbitrary timeouts with intelligent state polling.

About

Condition-Based Waiting is a specialized Claude Code skill designed to stabilize test suites by moving away from hard-coded delays like sleep or setTimeout. By implementing a polling mechanism that waits for specific state changes, events, or file system updates, it ensures tests pass reliably across different environments—from local development to high-load CI/CD pipelines. This approach significantly reduces test flakiness and accelerates execution speed by allowing tests to proceed as soon as a condition is met, rather than waiting for a fixed, conservative time window.

Key Features

Configurable timeouts with descriptive error messages for easier debugging
Standardized patterns for waiting on events, state changes, and file updates
0 GitHub stars
Optimizes test execution time by proceeding immediately upon condition success
Replaces arbitrary sleep/setTimeout calls with smart condition polling
Prevents race conditions in parallel test execution environments

Use Cases

Synchronizing tests with asynchronous file system or database operations
Fixing flaky integration tests that fail intermittently in CI/CD pipelines
Testing complex state transitions in event-driven architectures

About

Key Features

Configurable timeouts with descriptive error messages for easier debugging
Standardized patterns for waiting on events, state changes, and file updates
0 GitHub stars
Optimizes test execution time by proceeding immediately upon condition success
Replaces arbitrary sleep/setTimeout calls with smart condition polling
Prevents race conditions in parallel test execution environments

Use Cases

Synchronizing tests with asynchronous file system or database operations
Fixing flaky integration tests that fail intermittently in CI/CD pipelines
Testing complex state transitions in event-driven architectures