Kerno
Backend runtime testing that validates critical workflows, detects security issues, and checks coding-agent changes against your local stack.
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Product Overview
What is Kerno?
Kerno is a backend testing platform that verifies code changes against running applications and real dependencies. It maps critical user flows, generates and runs tests, and checks affected workflows before changes merge. Through MCP integration, Kerno brings runtime feedback into coding-agent workflows, helping developers catch functional regressions, security flaws, and integration failures.
Key Features
End-to-End Flow Testing
Tests complete user journeys across APIs and the underlying entry points, including background tasks, message queues, and MCP tools.
Real-Stack Validation
Runs tests against your local application, databases, and services to uncover issues that depend on actual runtime behavior.
Change-Aware Verification
Identifies flows affected by code changes, reruns relevant tests, and highlights differences between expected and actual outcomes.
Runtime Security Checks
Checks authentication, authorization, injection risks, data exposure, and other security weaknesses alongside functional behavior.
Coding-Agent Integration
Connects through MCP to tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex, returning test feedback within the development loop.
Adaptive Test Maintenance
Updates tests as intended behavior changes and applies custom business rules and lessons from developer feedback.
Use Cases
- Agent-Generated Code Verification : Validate coding-agent changes against the running backend before merging them.
- Critical Workflow Regression Testing : Check that checkout, refunds, onboarding, and other multi-step workflows still produce the expected results.
- API Migration Validation : Detect contract mismatches, schema changes, and integration failures during backend migrations or refactoring.
- Backend Security Testing : Test access controls, tenant isolation, input handling, and sensitive-data exposure under runtime conditions.
- MCP Server Verification : Validate tool responses, structured outputs, schema compliance, and error handling in MCP servers.
FAQs
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