Technical Diagnostic
#stability

Solving Flaky E2E Test Suites in CI/CD

Economic & Velocity Impact

Flaky tests are a "tax" on engineering velocity. They lead to developer burnout, slower release cycles, and a gradual erosion of the testing culture. Over time, the cost of "investigating false positives" outweighs the benefits of the test suite itself.

99.9%Suite Stability
45%CI Time Red.

Common Symptoms

  • "Tests fail intermittently without any code changes."
  • "CI pipelines take 2x longer due to retry loops and flakiness."
  • "The engineering team stopped trusting the test output."
  • "Critical bugs are leaking into production despite a "green" suite."

Root Cause Analysis

  • Non-deterministic state management across asynchronous boundaries.
  • Race conditions between UI rendering and test execution logic.
  • Unstable test environments or shared database state across runs.
  • Lack of isolated retry strategies for specific network conditions.

How I Solve This

I implement a stability-first framework focused on "Deterministic Testing." This involves strict state isolation, custom Playwright/Cypress abstractions for synchronization, and observability layers that identify high-frequency failure patterns before they block the release.

Execution & Outcomes

Suite Stability
99.9%
CI Time Red.
45%

Frequently Asked Questions

Why not just use built-in test retries?
Retries mask the problem but don't fix the root cause. A flaky test that passes on retry still increases CI costs and signals an unstable architectural pattern that will eventually manifest as a production bug.
How long does a stability audit take?
A typical diagnostic of a flaky suite takes 3-5 days. I pinpoint the top 20% of tests causing 80% of the failures and provide immediate fixes for the underlying race conditions.

Technical Tools

Real-World Case Studies

Fix the Root Cause. Restore Velocity.

Don't keep paying a tax on flakiness or performance. Let's start with a diagnostic session to identify the fastest path to stability in your stack.

Get Stability AuditLong-term Advisory