ADR-007: Integration tests in Kind clusters

Category: development Provenance: guided-ai

Decision

Integration tests must run in real Kind (Kubernetes in Docker) clusters with real Keycloak instances. No mocked operators, no mocked Keycloak.

Rationale

Production parity: Tests run against the same environment as production (real K8s, real Keycloak). Catch integration issues: Mocks hide networking, timing, and state issues that only appear in real clusters. Helm chart validation: Tests verify the actual deployment artifacts users will use. CI/CD confidence: If it passes integration tests, it works in production. Trade-off: Slower test execution, but higher confidence in results.

Agent Instructions

Integration tests use 'make test-integration' which creates Kind clusters. Never mock the operator or Keycloak in integration tests - use real deployments. Tests must deploy via Helm charts to validate production-like scenarios. Read tests/integration/TESTING.md for patterns and requirements.