Handling Flaky Tests: Strategies for Stable Continuous Testing

Why Flaky Tests Are Problematic

Flaky tests pose significant challenges, especially in environments heavily reliant on automated testing, such as CI/CD pipelines. Unreliable tests can:

• Erode trust in test results.
• Delay releases.
• Consume additional resources for troubleshooting.
• Conceal genuine issues, leading to faulty application releases.

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The Pitfalls of Ignoring Test Automation Context

There are many ways to approach test automation: by context, by data, by domain. However, what often happens is the rush to jump in, write test cases, and create a design pattern abstraction (like page objects or app actions) without deeper thought.

This inertia and lack of understanding can affect how code is written and what is validated, leading to suboptimal results. Here’s an exercise to illustrate the issue:

• Open your test suite and check how many duplicate assertions exist across different specs.
• Identify test cases with multiple assertions that don’t directly relate to the core case.
• Measure how long your test interface takes to complete.

Now ask yourself:

• Do you spend more time “fixing” or “improving” the suite than actually testing the software?
• Are you automating because someone told you to, or are you creating valuable tests with clear objectives?

If this resonates with your situation, your automation efforts might be counterproductive, introducing more work rather than reducing it. Understanding the context and purpose behind automation is key to avoiding this loop.

Is Your Test Automation Adding Value or Creating Chaos?

It may sound absurd, but if you’re in this situation, automating testing is a waste of time, introducing more work than reducing it. Once you understand that this situation is not ideal, there are ways to get out of this loop. Reflect on how you’re designing tests, and consider:

• Are you writing meaningful tests with a clear purpose?
• Are you following principles that reduce maintenance and increase reliability?

A post I wrote on four simple steps for creating meaningful automated tests provides actionable tips for improving your approach. Remembering these principles while designing a test will significantly reduce the maintenance effort later.

Reflecting on Test Automation Practices

Before we deep dive into handling flaky tests, I want you to reflect on these questions:

• How much time do you spend debugging your test script errors?
• How long do you wait to have it run again because the network failed?
• How much time do you spend arguing with DEV because, on a rerun, it works?
• How much time do you spend refactoring your test code because you had an unreported change?
• How often did you take the first test run result outcome and refer to it as the absolute truth of a passed test?
• How long do you spend rerunning the tests to get a positive result?

These questions highlight systemic issues in test automation practices, often stemming from a lack of understanding of the context in which the test suite operates.

What causes Test Flakiness?

Many of you work in environments where sprints are crammed with work; regression coverage is lagging, etc. Working on automation seems very tempting and may simplify things initially when building/extending automated test suites. This easiness of thought leads us to overengineer the solution and write tests impractically. There could be many reasons a test is flaky: concurrency, undefined behaviors, third-party dependencies, infrastructural problems, etc. There is an insightful article on how Google handles flaky tests, which I recommend you to read.

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Identifying Flaky Tests

Detecting flaky tests in automated testing requires a combination of strategic thinking and specifics. I have tried to summarise the main criteria together with strategies employed in the diagram below:

You will gain more insights and embrace a more precise methodology to identify and subsequently mitigate the inconsistency in the collection of automated tests over time. Often, flakiness could be caused by an issue in one of your test or staging environments that won’t be carried over to production. However, issues such as network errors, load times, or problems with their parties could eventually affect the end user. If you ignore flaky tests, you may overlook the possibility of user impact.

Four Simple Steps to Meaningful Tests

Creating meaningful automated tests reduces maintenance efforts. Keep in mind these 4R3I’s:

• Revisit, Review, Revise, Reframe
• Ideate, Innovate, Iterate

By following these steps, you can proactively minimize test flakiness.

Conclusion

Effectively addressing flaky tests requires a combination of technical solutions, process improvements, and collaborative teamwork. While no approach completely eliminates flakiness, adopting these strategies ensures greater consistency and dependability in your test automation suite. As your test suite grows, remain vigilant and adapt to evolving contexts to maintain reliability and trust.

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