CI/CD Anti-Patterns

Preface

1. Purpose of the book
2. What is unique about this book?
3. Who the book is for?
4. Send me feedback

Introduction

1. Continuous Integration (CI)
2. Continuous Delivery and CI/CD
3. Who does “CI/CD”?
4. 80+% of CI/CD effort is about Test Automation
5. Continuous Testing

No Real Delivery

1. Anti-Pattern: Unclear on delivery destination
2. Anti-Pattern: Fear to deploy to a test-ready environment
3. Anti-Pattern: Auto production deployment
4. Anti-Pattern: CI/CD is disconnected from production releases
5. Wrap-up

Non-Testing CI Steps

1. Anti-Pattern: Not fully-automated CI steps
2. Anti-Pattern: Manual database schema migration
3. Anti-Pattern: CI Engineers lack automation skills
4. Anti-Pattern: Slow compile/build/package
5. Anti-Pattern: Fixated with code coverage
6. Anti-Pattern: No auto-deployment to internal server environments
7. Anti-Pattern: Lack of notification to the team about CI/CD build results

Test Automation is the Core of CI/CD

1. Anti-Pattern: No Automated Testing in CI
2. Anti-Pattern: Automated Test Execution Not Enabled in CI
3. Anti-Pattern: Remove failed automated tests to pass the run
4. Anti-Pattern: Long-Running Unit Tests in CI
5. Anti-Pattern: Frequent Unit Test Failures in CI
6. Anti-Pattern: Long-Running Integration Tests in CI
7. Anti-Pattern: Automated Tests Not Run Often in CI
8. Anti-Pattern: No Regression Testing in CI/CD
9. Wrap-up

E2E Test Automation

1. Anti-Pattern: No Automated Acceptance Testing in CI/CD
2. Anti-Pattern: Sequential Executing E2E Tests in CI/CD
3. Anti-Pattern: Avoid Running the Entire Suite—Split It into Smaller Suites
4. Anti-Pattern: Prioritizing Tests in Execution
5. Anti-Pattern: Fake Automated Acceptance Testing
6. Anti-Pattern: E2E Test Scripts are Not in an Independent Git Repository
7. Anti-Pattern: Headless Browser Testing
8. Anti-Pattern: Long execution time > 1 hour
9. Anti-Pattern: Parallel Execution on one machine
10. Wrap-up

CT Features Missing in Most CI/CD Servers

1. View Test Scripts in the CT Server Web Interface
2. Capture Application Screenshots on E2E Test Failure
3. Quick navigation to the failed test line
4. Auto-Retry Failed E2E Test on Another Build Agent
5. Manually Rerun Tests
6. Dynamic Test Execution Ordering
7. Distribution rules
8. Delay completion
9. Anti-Pattern: Being constrained by a vendor’s CI/CD server limitations and do nothing
10. Wrap-up

Mindset

1. Anti-Pattern: “Test Automation in CI Slows Down Development”
2. Anti-Pattern: “Prefer expensive commercial CI/CD solutions over free open-source ones”
3. Anti-Pattern: “API Testing as E2E Test Automation in CI/CD is Enough”
4. Anti-Pattern: “E2E Test Automation Is Inherently Fragile, Keep Them To a Minimum”
5. Anti-Pattern: “E2E Test Automation Is Too Expensive, So we don’t include in CI/CD”
6. Anti-Pattern: Assuming Automated Tests Will Always Pass After Creation
7. Anti-Pattern: “E2E Test Automation Scripts Must Use the Same Language as the Application Code”
8. Anti-Pattern: “Set up a CI/CD Solution Takes a Long Time and Costly”
9. Anti-Pattern: Drawn to flashy, smoke-and-mirror features like Test Replay
10. Wrap-up

General Practices

1. Anti-Pattern: Not the exact the same release package for different target environments.
2. Anti-Pattern: Underinvesting in CI/CD Hardware
3. Anti-Pattern: Automating the Tear Down and Setup of the CI Servers Daily
4. Anti-Pattern: No Admin Access for Developers and Testers in CI/CD
5. Anti-Pattern: Only limited to execute one specific type of automated tests in one language
6. Anti-Pattern: A Single CI/CD Server Serving the Entire Company/Division
7. Anti-Pattern: No Daily Builds
8. Anti-Pattern: No incremental version or build number during internal testing
9. Anti-Pattern: Commit-Driven CI/CD Triggers
10. Anti-Pattern: Sending Real Emails Out During Test execution in CI/CD

Non-Functional Testing

1. Anti-Pattern: No Continuous Performance Testing
2. Anti-Pattern: No Continuous Load Testing
3. Wrap-up

CI/CD Hosting

1. Anti-Pattern: Neglecting the Needs of E2E Test Automation
2. Anti-Pattern: Falling for flashy but useless features in cloud testing platforms but miss the big picture
3. Anti-Pattern: Completely unaware of or blindly exlcuding on-premise Setup
4. Wrap-up

Team Involvement

1. Execute Individual Tests via the CT Server Web Interface
2. Data Preparation for User Acceptance Testing
3. Self-help Utilities that whole team can use on the CT Server
4. Generate a Traceability Matrix
5. Anti-Pattern: Non-Tech Team Members Not Using CI/CD Server
6. Anti-Pattern: Only One Run Configuration
7. Case Study: A bug-fixing cycle in a team with real CI/CD
8. Real CI/CD Boots Customers’ Trust and Confidence in the team

Leadership

1. Anti-Pattern: Failing to Recognize the Great Benefits of Real CI/CD
2. Anti-Pattern: Lack Team-Wide Training on CI/CD Process
3. Anti-Pattern: Developers delay fixing newly discovered defects by Continuous Testing
4. Anti-Pattern: Stuck with One CI Vendor or One Person
5. Anti-Pattern: Assuming Existing Staff Can Deliver Real CI/CD and E2E Automation with a New Product
6. Anti-Pattern: Fixated with All-in-one CI/CD. Two Stage CI → CD Often Better

Afterword

1. My CI/CD Formula
2. How many E2E Tests in CI/CD are enough?
3. My Continuous Testing Lab Setup

Appendix I: Anti-Patterns List

Appendix II: CI Steps

Resources

1. Books
2. Tools
3. Blog

References