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8.3Identifying Test Debt
Signals That Debt Is Accumulating
- Flake rate is rising: More tests pass on retry without code changes
- Pipeline time is growing: Each sprint, the pipeline takes a few minutes longer
- Manual regression is growing: More features but the manual test list never shrinks
- Bug escape rate is rising: More bugs found in production than in testing
- Onboarding takes weeks: New QA engineers struggle to understand the test suite
- Tests break on infrastructure changes: Changing a URL or database breaks dozens of tests
- Nobody touches old tests: Everyone writes new tests but nobody maintains existing ones
Measuring Test Debt
| Metric | How to Measure | Healthy | Concerning | Critical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flake rate | Flaky test runs / Total runs | < 2% | 2-5% | > 5% |
| Automation ratio | Automated / Total test cases | > 80% | 50-80% | < 50% |
| Pipeline duration | CI/CD end-to-end time | < 15 min | 15-30 min | > 30 min |
| Coverage trend | Line coverage over sprints | Increasing | Flat | Decreasing |
| Test maintenance ratio | Time maintaining vs writing tests | < 30% | 30-50% | > 50% |