9 Ways To Make Slow Tests Faster

In the realm of software development, maintaining fast and efficient test suites is crucial for enhancing productivity, code quality, and deployment frequency. Slow tests can hinder development, leading to frustration and delays in achieving goals. A five-step framework is suggested to optimize slow tests, focusing on breaking up large tests, isolating them with stubbing or mocking, removing obsolete tests, replacing sleep statements with synchronization mechanisms, and optimizing database queries. Tests should be independently runnable, emphasizing external behavior over internal workings to facilitate refactoring. Parallelization, especially in CI/CD pipelines, is highlighted as a key strategy for improving test speed, though it requires careful implementation to avoid issues like race conditions. Additionally, leveraging APIs over UI for testing can reduce resource usage and enhance scalability. The article underscores the importance of maintaining a streamlined and valuable test suite to support frequent software releases and sustain team morale.