beam-community/ex_machina

ExMachina is an Elixir library for generating test data factories, now operating under the BEAM Community stewardship. It provides a macro-based factory definition system with an extensible strategy protocol, supporting custom logic such as JSON encoding and robust Ecto integration for database inserts. The system handles complex schema relationships, sequence generation, and attribute merging, while offering configuration options to preserve date structures and ensure test environment stability.

A new executable script at bin/release has been added to streamline the release process. When invoked with a previous and a new version number, it automatically updates the version strings in README.md and mix.exs, commits the changes, creates a git tag, pushes to the remote repository, and publishes the package via mix hex.publish.

bin · high confidence

The test repository schema is now defined in a single migration file (1\_migrate\_all.exs) instead of multiple separate files. This consolidated migration creates the necessary tables (users, publishers, articles, comments, documents) and includes a database trigger on the users table to automatically set a db\_value field, ensuring the test environment is set up with all required structures in one step.

priv · high confidence

The application now explicitly loads a dedicated test configuration file (test.exs) when running in the test environment, replacing the previous generic import logic. This new configuration sets up the ExMachina test repository to use the Ecto SQL Sandbox with a PostgreSQL connection on localhost:5432, and configures the logger to output only warning-level messages. Additionally, a configuration option for ExMachina to preserve date values (preserve\_dates: true) is introduced to prevent breaking changes when converting datetime values, allowing users to opt into preserving date structures instead of converting them to string-keyed maps.

config · high confidence

Factory definitions are now implemented as macros rather than functions, enabling compile-time validation and better integration with Elixir's macro system. The library introduces a new \ExMachina.Strategy\ protocol that allows users to define custom strategies (such as JSON encoding) by implementing a \handle\\\ callback, replacing the previous internal strategy mechanism. This architectural shift also underpins the refactored \ExMachina.Ecto\ module, which now uses \ExMachina.EctoStrategy\ to handle database inserts with improved support for associations, embeds, and casting, while maintaining backward compatibility for existing \build\ and \insert\ workflows.

_lib/ex\machina · high confidence

The library has been renamed from Anvil to ExMachina and transferred to the BEAM Community organization. This change updates the project identity, including the README, license headers, and documentation, to reflect the new name and maintainers.

(repo-wide) · high confidence

The library has been renamed from Anvil to ExMachina, removing the old \lib/anvil.ex\ module. Additionally, the \create\, \create\_pair\, and \create\_list\ functions have been removed; calling them now raises an error directing users to use \insert\/\insert\_pair\/\insert\_list\ (if using ExMachina.Ecto) or to implement \ExMachina.Strategy\ for custom save logic.

lib · high confidence

Added test coverage for ExMachina core features; Added test support infrastructure for Ecto integration; Added test support models for complex schema relationships; Initial test suite for ExMachina factory functions.

The project has been renamed from Anvil to ExMachina, updating the application ID to :ex\_machina and the module namespace to ExMachina.Mixfile. The Elixir requirement has been raised to \~\> 1.11, and the version is set to 2.8.2. Dependencies have been updated, including Ecto (\~\> 2.2 or \~\> 3.0), Ecto SQL (\~\> 3.0), and dev tools like Credo, Dialyxir, Doctor, ExCoveralls, and ExDoc. The mix.lock file reflects these changes, locking specific versions for all dependencies.

(dependencies) · high confidence

Written by watchdog.canine.dev from the codebase's own history, inside the signed delivery this page is composed from.

• CAI 67 → 67 (+0.5)
• Rubric changed (rubric-2026.08.19 → rubric-2026.09.15) — scores are not directly comparable.

• Code Health 100 → 100 (+0.0)
• Architecture 69 → 69 (+0.0)
• Maturity 55 → 55 (+0.0)
• Readiness 83 → 84 (+1.2)
• Security 81 → 84 (+2.7)

• Coverage not included — suite not readable by the collector
• Dependency hygiene not measured — no supported dependency manifest was read
• No exposed public API
• PR-triggered workflow without a permissions block
• Test reliability not included

• Medium: security finding (details withheld)
• Workflow holding a long-lived secret is unscoped

• 4 commits — 4 feature/other, 0 fixes

• (root) — 3 commits
• .github/workflows — 1 commit

• change: chore(deps): bump ecto from 3.14.1 to 3.14.2 in the prod group (#571)
• change: chore(deps): bump postgrex from 0.22.3 to 0.22.4 in the dev group (#570)
• change: chore(deps): bump the dev group with 2 updates (#572)
• change: chore: sync files with beam-community/common-config (#569)

Written by watchdog.canine.dev from the codebase's own history, inside the signed delivery this page is composed from.

beam-community/ex_machina was measured the same way every project in this corpus was: the same rubric, at a pinned commit, with the result published in full. Point a surveyor at a repository you know and see whether you agree with it.