Replicate logic or using existent in tests? - ruby

Question

I have some concerns about writing too much logic in the spec tests.
So let's assume we have a student with statuses and steps
Student statuses starts from
pending -> learning -> graduated -> completed
and steps are:
nil -> learning_step1 -> learning_step2 -> learning_step3 -> monitoring_step1 -> monitoring_step2
With each step going forward a lot of things are happening depending where you are: e.g.
nil -> learning_step1
Student status changes to learning
Writes an action history ( which is used by report stats )
Update a contact schedule
learning_step1 -> learning_step2
....the same...
and so ..... until
learning_step3 -> monitoring_step1
Student status changes to graduated
Writes different action histories ( which is used by report stats )
Update a contact schedule
and when
monitoring_step2 -> there is no next step
Student status changes to completed
Writes different action histories ( which is used by report stats )
Delete any contact schedule
So imagine that I need a test case of a completed student, I would have to think all the possibilities that may come and achieve that student as completed and also I can forget to write an action history and will mess with the reports.
Or ....
Using an already implemented class:
# assuming we have like in the above example 5 steps I do
StepManager.new(student).proceed # goes status learning and step1
StepManager.new(student).proceed
StepManager.new(student).proceed
StepManager.new(student).proceed # goes status graduated and monitoring1
StepManager.new(student).proceed # this will proceed the student in the 5th step which is monitoring2
StepManager.new(student).next_step # here will go completed
or to make my job easier with something like:
StepManager.new(student).proceed.proceed.proceed.proceed.proceed.proceed
or
StepManager.new(student).complete_student # which in background does the same thing
And by doing that I am sure I will never miss something. But then the tests wouldn't be so clear about what I am doing.
So should I replicate the logic or using my classes?

Answer 1

Use TDD best practices. In a rails project for example, write unit tests for your models and controller actions. Same for services. Test each unit for it's expectations. If you need more complex data state to check, it's recommended to use factories using https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_bot or https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_bot_rails if you're using rails.