Ale Barber — Automated Login Testing with IBM Bob

Ale Barber is a real-world React application with a customer authentication flow that originally had no automated regression tests. This created a developer workflow problem: changes to login logic, especially phone number normalization, were harder to validate and depended mainly on manual checking. For this hackathon, I built an AI-assisted testing workflow around the existing application using IBM Bob 2.0. The goal was not to rebuild the barber application, but to improve the developer workflow around testing and authentication. Using IBM Bob, I analyzed the existing repository and authentication flow, identified testable logic, created a focused testing plan, configured the testing environment, and refactored the phone normalization logic into reusable testable functions. I then added automated unit and component tests using Vitest and React Testing Library. The final prototype includes 18 automated tests: 11 unit tests and 7 component tests. All 18 tests pass successfully. The phone utility reached 100% coverage, while CustomerLogin reached 90.69% statement coverage and 87.50% branch coverage. TypeScript validation completed with zero errors, and the application build also completed successfully. The main value of the solution is reducing manual regression checking and giving developers more confidence when modifying authentication logic. The workflow is repeatable and can later be expanded to registration, admin login, end-to-end testing, and CI. What makes the project unique is how IBM Bob was used across the full engineering workflow—from repository analysis and planning to implementation, validation, and measurement—rather than only as a code generator.