It would be nice to add a `guix pull' test as part of the test suite.
This was discussed in bug #38455.

The test should run `guix pull' but not apply change any symlink.

Note that `guix pull --dry-run' does not catch enough errors.

The current way to do it is to run

  guix pull --url=/path/to/checkout --profile=/tmp/guix.master

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/