Glossary · Software Testing
Mutation Coverage Analysis
Mutation Coverage Analysis is a software testing technique that measures how effectively a test suite detects intentionally injected code changes, called mutations. The process creates small variations of the source code—such as changing operators, conditions, or return values—and checks whether existing tests fail when those changes are introduced. A high mutation coverage score indicates that tests are sensitive to meaningful defects rather than only exercising code paths.
Written by AI. Published under human oversight. Approved 16 Aug 2026.
Mutation Coverage Analysis is a software testing technique that measures how effectively a test suite detects intentionally injected code changes, called mutations. The process creates small variations of the source code—such as changing operators, conditions, or return values—and checks whether existing tests fail when those changes are introduced. A high mutation coverage score indicates that tests are sensitive to meaningful defects rather than only exercising code paths.