Word.ws English Dictionary

happy path

happy path noun: a default scenario in which no exceptional or error conditions arise.

Noun

happy path (plural happy paths)

  1. A default scenario in which no exceptional or error conditions arise.
    • The use case template is initially used to define the primary pathway, called the happy path, or, more formally, the Basic Course of Events (BCOE). The happy path, or as one of my seminar attendees called it, the “sunny-day path,” is the most commonly occurring pathway through the use case. It is...2000, Paul R. Reed, Developing Applications with Visual Basic and UML, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN, page 68
    • A common mistake made in all forms of testing is only performing happy path testing. This is especially common if you're writing tests for code you recently authored. Happy path testing is when you carefully establish all of the preconditions for the code you're testing and then only provide valid...2014, Peter J. Jones, Effective Ruby: 48 Specific Ways to Write Better Ruby, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN, page 158

Examples of happy path in a sentence

  • The use case template is initially used to define the primary pathway, called the happy path, or, more formally, the Basic Course of Events (BCOE).2000, Paul R. Reed, Developing Applications with Visual Basic and UML, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN, page 68:
  • A common mistake made in all forms of testing is only performing happy path testing.2014, Peter J. Jones, Effective Ruby: 48 Specific Ways to Write Better Ruby, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN, page 158:

Synonyms of happy path

Forms of happy path

pluralhappy paths

Questions about happy path

What does happy path mean?
Happy path means a default scenario in which no exceptional or error conditions arise.
How do you use happy path in a sentence?
The use case template is initially used to define the primary pathway, called the happy path, or, more formally, the Basic Course of Events (BCOE).
What part of speech is happy path?
Happy path is a noun.
What is the plural of happy path?
The plural of happy path is happy paths.

Words near happy path in the dictionary

  1. Happy New Year's
  2. happy number
  3. happy numbers
  4. happy panda
  5. happy pandas
  6. happy path
  7. happy paths
  8. happy pill
  9. happy pills
  10. happy place
  11. happy places

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: happy path (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “happy path.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/happy_path. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.