diff --git a/t/test-lib-functions.sh b/t/test-lib-functions.sh
index 9c3cf12b26..93fe819b0a 100644
--- a/t/test-lib-functions.sh
+++ b/t/test-lib-functions.sh
@@ -1874,6 +1874,20 @@ test_region () {
 	return 0
 }
 
+# Check that the given data fragment was included as part of the
+# trace2-format trace on stdin.
+#
+#	test_trace2_data <category> <key> <value>
+#
+# For example, to look for trace2_data_intmax("pack-objects", repo,
+# "reused", N) in an invocation of "git pack-objects", run:
+#
+#	GIT_TRACE2_EVENT="$(pwd)/trace.txt" git pack-objects ... &&
+#	test_trace2_data pack-objects reused N <trace2.txt
+test_trace2_data () {
+	grep -e '"category":"'"$1"'","key":"'"$2"'","value":"'"$3"'"'
+}
+
 # Given a GIT_TRACE2_EVENT log over stdin, writes to stdout a list of URLs
 # sent to git-remote-https child processes.
 test_remote_https_urls() {