Regression testing automation provides an important measure
of product quality and can keep the quality moving forward during the SDLC. Unfortunately
automation can take a long time to run, and automation failures generally must
be debugged and triaged by the test automation team before any action item can
be considered or communicated to the broader team. The resulting time lag and
uncertainty greatly reduces the value of the automation, and causes cost, risk
etc.
MetaAutomation is a language of five patterns that provide
guidance to new and existing automation efforts, to provide fast and reliable
regression of correct business behavior for a software solution and to speed
quality communication around the team, while reducing latency and human cost.
The five patterns – Atomic Check, User Pool, Parallel Run,
Smart Retry and Automated Triage - are in a sequence, representing an order in
which the patterns can be applied, and also form a network of dependencies
between the patterns.
For an existing automation project, the Atomic Check pattern
can be applied in whole or in parts to run the automation faster (e.g. with shorter
and better-defined tests) and create results which are more actionable (e.g.
with asynchronous and/or inline test setup, hierarchical steps defined at
runtime, explicit verifications, custom exceptions, etc.). If enough of Atomic
Check is adhered to, the dependent patterns can then be applied to further speed,
direct and enhance the value of communications resulting from the automation.
The patterns are language-independent. A
platform-independent sample implementation of the Atomic Test pattern will be
demonstrated in C#.
