Flaky Tests from an Engineering Perspective

About The Video

Catch the latest episode of the XP Series webinar featuring 𝐁𝐨š𝐭𝐣𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐧, Developer Relations at Semaphore. Join us for a deep dive into what the engineering perspective looks like for flaky tests.

In this episode, Bostjan explores why flaky tests are such a significant issue, highlighting their impact on wasting time through needless re-runs and disrupting the software delivery lifecycle. With test suites often run in CI/CD tools, flaky tests lead to ineffective feedback loops and inefficient workflows, alongside the substantial costs of machine time.

Key Topics Covered

Introduction to Flaky Tests: A comprehensive overview of flaky tests, highlighting their impact on software delivery, the necessity of efficient feedback loops, and the costs associated with machine time and inefficient workflows.

Root Causes of Flaky Tests: Exploration of the primary causes of flaky tests, including dependencies, environment inconsistencies, and the human factor. The session discusses the significance of understanding these root causes for effective mitigation.

Detection Techniques: Discussion on various techniques to detect flaky tests, ranging from simple rerun strategies to sophisticated machine learning approaches that analyze historical test data for patterns indicative of flakiness.

Mitigation and Management Strategies: Insightful strategies to manage and mitigate flaky tests, emphasizing the importance of mocks and stubs, test isolation, dependency scanning, and the prioritization of critical tests based on their impact on business logic.

Stability and Infrastructure: An examination of how environmental stability and infrastructure reliability play crucial roles in reducing the occurrence of flaky tests, ensuring consistency across development, staging, and testing environments.

The Impact of Flaky Tests: An in-depth look at how flaky tests can disrupt the software delivery lifecycle, leading to ineffective feedback loops, increased costs, and frustration among engineering teams.

Identifying Flaky Tests: Practical advice on identifying flaky tests using tools and dashboards that provide insights into test suite performance, disruptions caused by flaky tests, and their impact on CI/CD pipelines.

Collaborative Reviews: The value of collaborative code reviews involving both developers and QA engineers to bring diverse perspectives to the forefront, enhancing the overall quality of the code and tests.

Closing Thoughts: Concluding remarks on the importance of awareness and proactive management of flaky tests to maintain high software quality and efficient delivery processes.

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