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Software Engineering vocabulary · Testing

Flaky

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

/ˈfleɪki/adjectiveCommon term

In software engineering, flaky means: Describing a test that sometimes passes and sometimes fails without any change to the code, often because of timing, the network or shared data.

In Turkish: kararsız, tutarsız, güvenilmez

How it is used

Mostly said about tests and CI: 'a flaky test', 'This test is flaky, just rerun it.' Teams track, quarantine and fix flaky tests because they slowly destroy trust in CI. In everyday English, 'flaky' also describes unreliable people.

Example sentences

  1. The payment test is flaky. It fails about once in every ten runs.

  2. Don't just rerun the pipeline; please open a ticket for the flaky test.

Common collocations

  • flaky test
  • flaky build
  • quarantine flaky tests
  • fix a flaky test
  • end-to-end testA test that runs a complete user journey through the real system, for example opening the site, logging in and placing an order, to check that everything works together.
  • CI/CDShort for continuous integration and continuous delivery (or deployment): automatically building and testing every change, then releasing it quickly and safely.
  • unit testA small automated test that checks one function or class on its own, separate from the database, the network and the rest of the system.
  • test caseOne specific situation you check, with set inputs, steps and an expected result, for example 'logging in with a wrong password shows an error'.

More terms: Testing

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