Dimensional Data

Code Review News Competency in the TestOps field is now just as much of a basic requirement for QA engineers as the ability to write automated tests. This is because of the ongoing development of CI/CD and the increasing number of QA engineers who work with pipelines (or the sequence of stages in CI/CD) and implement their own. So why is CI/CD such a great tool for quality control? Let’s find out. Running tests automatically Automated tests haven’t been run locally in what feels like ages. These days, CI/CD pipelines run tests automatically as one of their main functions. Pipeline configuration can be assigned to DevOps. But then we will be a long way from making use of CI/CD’s second function: quality control, or more precisely, “quality gates”. Quality control using quality gates But what are quality gates? Let’s say the product code is like a castle. Every day, developers write new code – which could weaken the foundations of our castle or even poke holes in it, if we are really unlucky. The purpose of a QA engineer is to test each feature and reduce the likelihood of bugs finding their way into product code. Lack of automation in the QA process could cause QA engineers to lose sleep, since there is nobody to watch over all the various metrics – especially at dangerous times, like Friday evenings when everyone wants to leave work and is hurrying to get everything finished. An ill-fated merge at that moment can cause a lot of problems down the road. This problem can be solved by building in quality checks. Each check deals with a different important metric. If the code doesn’t pass a check, the gates close and the feature is not allowed to enter. A feature will only be merged into the product when it passes all the checks and potential bugs have been prevented. What quality checks can be included in CI/CD? We need to put together a list of checks to ensure that the process is as automated as possible. They can be sequenced in “fail first” order. A feature needs to pass all the checks to get through the pipeline successfully. The initial checks are the ones that make sure the app is capable of working: build, code style check, and static analysis.  “Build” speaks for itself: if the app cannot be built, the feature does not progress. It is important to incorporate a code style check into your CI/CD pipeline to ensure the code meets unified requirements, as doing so allows you to avoid wasting time on this kind of bug during code reviews. Static analysis is an extremely important tool for judging code quality. It can point out a huge number of critical errors that lead to bugs. We then continue with stage-two checks: unit tests with coverage analysis and coverage quality control, as well as integration and systems tests. Next, we review detailed reports of the results to make sure nothing was missed. At this stage we may also perform a range of non-functional tests to check performance, convenience, and security, as well as screenshot tests.  When developing a pipeline, we need to pay attention to two competing requirements:  The pipeline must guarantee the best possible feature quality in light of your needs. Time spent running […]