Successful Test Automation Methodologies for Modern CI/CD Pipelines

Test automation and the rise of CI/CD have had a huge influence on the field of software testing. Considering developers wanting pipelines to offer immediate feedback on whether their software update was successful or not, many software QA teams have been pushed to reassess their existing automated testing methodologies and discover ways to speed up their delivery without sacrificing quality. In the testing world, these two elements sometimes contradict one another, since time is often the greatest enemy in a QA software tester's attempt to be as thorough as possible in reaching their intended testing coverage.

As a result, how can software quality assurance teams cope with this huge shift in order to create high-quality test automation based on the expectation of quick CI pipeline feedback?
There are various ways to look at this, but what is crucial to understand is that the answers are less technical and more cultural in nature, with the attitude to testing needing to adapt rather than major technological improvements to the testing frameworks.

Meanwhile, if you want to assess your organziation’s/team’s QA maturity level, visit here.

What Is the Purpose of the CI/CD Pipeline?

The goal of test automation is to find flaws as early and as frequently as feasible during the software development process. It streamlines the delivery procedure. Additionally, the pipeline generates code, performs tests via continuous integration testing, and distributes an updated version of the product using continuous delivery approaches. Also, automated pipelines aid in the prevention of manual QA mistakes, standardize development feedback loops and enable rapid product iterations.

Test Automation's Role in a CI/CD Pipeline

Best Practices in CI/CD to Improve Test Automation Capabilities

1. Tests Must Be Identified And Categorized
Some software QA or test cases work well with the manual procedure, while others cannot be automated every time. It is critical to identify and categorize automated testing cases based on frequency and skill set.

• According to Frequency

High-frequency software quality assurance or test cases take time, labor, and resources, and they are also prone to human error. As a result, automating them increases productivity and eliminates potential mistakes.

• According to Skillset

This set of test cases necessitates a high level of expertise as well as additional resources. This requires dependence on certain QA software tester expertise, which will be difficult in an emergency. Automating them removes the dependency barrier and makes it simple for anybody to execute them once automated.

2. Automate as Many Tests as You Can

Create a successful testing approach based on a thorough understanding of all processes. Sort the test cases according to whether they require a human-based approach or test automation. Test cases that are frequent and need specialized knowledge are great candidates for automation. Automate as much as possible.

3. Run Many Tests In Parallel

Running many tests in parallel speeds up testing and reduces total testing turnaround time. If you have limited resources, consider using cloud-based software testing infrastructure to perform many tests.

4. Begin with Simple Tests

Tests are frequently categorized as lightweight or heavyweight, with each needing a particular timetable and set of resources. As a result, it is advised to run lightweight software quality assurance tests first since they are faster, followed by heavyweight tests, which are sometimes complicated and time-consuming.

5. Choose a Clean Testing Environment

Use a clean testing environment that is free of leftover effects from earlier tests. This is frequently a short-term setting that is deleted after each new test. It is encouraged to use containers to eliminate the possibility of lingering effects on future testing/software QA. Containers reduce the impact of diverse host environments by integrating components via common APIs.

6. Version Control

Issues/flaws ignored in earlier iterations frequently surface during app testing. This condition necessitates root cause analysis, which frequently takes more time and results in missing features in the production environment. It is suggested at this point to undo any changes made by developers to address concerns in earlier versions. A version control system is required for this.

7. Code Migration in a Single Click

Migrating code changes between environments is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. Single-click code migration, for instance, may achieve this for you with little effort, while also decreasing conflicts across activities. Incorporating such a technique into infrastructure improves operational and production capacities.

8. The CI/CD Pipeline is Essential

The CI/CD pipeline is critical to assuring the effective passage of code changes through automated testing cycles and on to staging and production. Set up thorough testing procedures along the pipeline to verify that it is clean, efficient, quick, and dependable.

9. Isolate and Secure the CI/CD Environment

Given that a CI/CD infrastructure has access to crucial components such as credentials, data, applications, and so on, it is necessary to protect the CI/CD environment from cyberattacks in order to avoid substantial loss or process breakdown. It is recommended to separate the CI/CD environment and regulate access (excluding developers) to specific assets to keep it safe.

10. Central Code Repository

When working with code in a software development environment, experts advocate using a central repository. The source code is stored in this repository. Establishing a single repository for code enables fast upgrades and compatibility with the most recent source code.

11. Continuous Learning

Given that SDLC consists of several phases, learning from earlier projects might assist you in avoiding similar situations in the future. To streamline and improve future procedures, detailed analysis, review, and documentation of approaches employed, best practices, gaps, and everything about previous instances are required.

12. One-way Mechanism

Ensure that the CI/CD pipeline is the only technique used to run your process chain. Working in the CI/CD pipeline entails applying best practices that apply to the whole process chain. Any modifications to the internal processes must comply to the standards and norms established for the whole pipeline. Any failure prohibits the process from progressing until it is fixed. The end outcome would be clean code being deployed to production.

13. Continuous Feedback

A continuous feedback mechanism is critical for ensuring that automation technologies are working properly and producing the expected outcomes. Feedback will aid in the understanding of errors and the correction of test scripts, ensuring that only the best code enters the production phase. Irregular reports frequently need a revision of test scripts. Overall, frequent input helps detect errors, rewrite code, and enhance test methods.

14. Transparency

To ensure success, teams must be in perfect sync. Continuous integration testing approaches provide openness in the process chain by providing regular progress updates on test cases. This automatically increases team communication and improves testing quality and overall efficiency.

15. Proper Tooling

Though the parameters listed above demonstrate the way to effective test automation via the CI/CD pipeline, the correct tools are vital in this endeavor. It is critical to find CI/CD solutions that can execute any type of testing function.

Searching for such useful tools helps to avoid deviations in the middle of product development.

Closing Words

The test automation environment is evolving as companies grapple with the common difficulties of continuous testing. The solution to these issues is automated testing, which has become a standard in today's software development procedures including continuous integration testing and delivery pipeline.

For this, make sure you partner with a reputable software testing and quality assurance services provider to create a full-cycle continuous release and deployment architecture. This cutting-edge approach will undoubtedly accelerate your overall development and match business demands for the future. Contact us for more details.