Continuous testing was originally proposed as a way of reducing waiting time for feedback to developers by introducing development environment-triggered tests as well as more traditional developer/tester-triggered tests. Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate.
[[Also Read: Challenges with Traditional Testing and the adoption of Continuous Testing]]
Following Key Points will help in understanding the Continuous Testing:
- Continuous Testing’s primary goal is assessing business risk coverage
- Continuous Testing provides instant insight on whether a release candidate is too risky to proceed through the delivery pipeline
- Continuous Testing establishes a safety net that helps the team protect the user experience in accelerated development processes and avoid software failure headlines
- Continuous Testing expects testing to be embedded within the development process, not tacked on at the end
- Continuous Testing is seamlessly integrated into the software delivery pipeline and DevOps toolchain
- Continuous Testing expects a stable test environment with valid test data to be available for each and every test run
- Continuous Testing embraces everything from “shift left” (unit, component, coverage…) to “shift right” (monitoring/ APM, Testing in Production)
- Continuous Testing involves executing the right set of tests at the right stage of the delivery pipeline—without creating a bottleneck
- Continuous Testing delivers actionable feedback appropriate for each stage of the delivery pipeline
- Continuous Testing evaluates each layer of a modern architecture at the appropriate stage of the delivery pipeline
- Continuous Testing includes end-to-end tests that realistically assess the end-user experience across all associated technologies (front-end and back-end)
- Continuous Testing’s tests must be broad enough to detect when an application change inadvertently impacts functionality that users have come to rely on
- Continuous Testing reduces false positives by prioritizing robust, flexible modern test frameworks over brittle scripts
- Continuous Testing involves continuously reviewing and optimizing the test suite to eliminate redundancy and maximize business risk coverage