> Back when I was a junior developer, there was a smoke test in our pipeline that never passed. I recall asking, “Why is this test failing?” The Senior Developer I was pairing with answered, “Ohhh, that one, yeah it hardly ever passes.” From that moment on, every time I saw a CI failure, I wondered: “Is this a flaky test, or a genuine failure?”
This is a really key insight. It erodes trust in the entire test suite and will lead to false negatives. If I couldn't get the time budget to fix the test, I'd delete it. I think a flaky test is worse than nothing.
This is a really key insight. It erodes trust in the entire test suite and will lead to false negatives. If I couldn't get the time budget to fix the test, I'd delete it. I think a flaky test is worse than nothing.