Aptitude

A test harness for validating AI agent (Claude Code) behavior against steering guides. This tool executes Claude with prompts and asserts on the tool calls made.

Installation

From crates.io

cargo install aptitude

From Homebrew

brew tap tatimblin/aptitude
brew install aptitude

From source

git clone https://github.com/tatimblin/aptitude
cd aptitude
cargo build --release

Usage

The harness has two main commands:

Run tests

Execute Claude with a test file and evaluate assertions:

# Run a single test
aptitude run test.yaml

# Run all tests in a directory
aptitude run tests/

# With verbose output and custom working directory
aptitude run test.yaml -v -w /path/to/workdir

Analyze existing sessions

Analyze a pre-existing Claude session log against test assertions:

aptitude analyze test.yaml session.jsonl

Test File Format

Tests are defined in YAML files:

name: "Test name"
prompt: "The prompt to send to Claude"
assertions:
  - tool: Read
    called: true
    params:
      file_path: "*.txt"  # glob pattern
  - tool: Bash
    called: false
  - tool: Write
    called_after: Read

Assertion Types

• called: true/false - Whether a tool was called
• params - Parameter matching (supports glob patterns, regex, or exact match)
• called_after - Ordering assertions (tool A must be called after tool B)

Development

# Build the project
cargo build

# Run tests
cargo test

# Run a specific test
cargo test test_name

Release Process

This project has fully automated releases to both crates.io and Homebrew:

One-time setup

1. Create crates.io API token:

   • Go to https://crates.io/settings/tokens and create a token
   • Add it as CARGO_REGISTRY_TOKEN secret in GitHub repo settings

2. Create GitHub personal access token:

   • Go to GitHub Settings → Developer settings → Personal access tokens
   • Create a token with repo permissions for your homebrew-tap repo
   • Add it as HOMEBREW_TAP_TOKEN secret in GitHub repo settings

3. Create Homebrew tap repository:

   gh repo create tatimblin/homebrew-aptitude --public
   

Create a new release

# Bump version and trigger fully automated release
./release.sh patch  # 0.1.0 -> 0.1.1
./release.sh minor  # 0.1.0 -> 0.2.0
./release.sh major  # 0.1.0 -> 1.0.0
./release.sh 1.2.3  # specific version

This single command automatically:

1. Updates version in Cargo.toml and Cargo.lock
2. Creates and pushes a git tag
3. Triggers GitHub Actions that:
   • Builds binaries for all platforms
   • Creates GitHub release with binaries
   • Publishes to crates.io
   • Calculates SHA256 hashes for Homebrew formula
   • Updates and pushes the Homebrew formula to your tap

No manual steps required!

Architecture

• parser.rs - Parses Claude Code JSONL session logs
• assertions.rs - Test structure and assertion evaluation
• executor.rs - Executes Claude and finds session logs
• watcher.rs - File watching for incremental parsing

License

MIT