Lily’s front porch test, which she submitted Ted’s girlfriends to in How I Met Your Mother, always highlighted moral quandaries, but the reason behind it also hid a very sweet reasoning. Only appearing in How I Met Your Mother season 4, episode 17, “The Front Porch,” Lily’s meddling in multiple relationships of Ted’s proved amusing because it prompted Ted and Karen to break up, a welcome development for the group considering their distaste of Karen. However, given how extensively involved Lily was revealed to be in Ted’s relationships, her front porch test always seemed too manipulative to be only considered a laughing-off expedient.
https://screenrant.com/how-i-met-your-mother-lily-porch-test-meaning/