Ranking Test Suites by What They Caught [Testμ 2026]

At Testμ Conf 2026, Paramount Quality Engineering Manager Partha Sarathi Samal presented “backwards scoring,” a method for evaluating automated tests by replaying every logged production incident against every candidate test rather than relying solely on code coverage. Tests receive one of three verdicts: proven if they uniquely catch a real incident, duplicate if they detect an issue already caught earlier by another test, or unproven if they have no historical catches. In an 18-month study of approximately 4,200 tests, 80% were proven, 8% duplicate, and 12% unproven, although no tests were automatically removed. Samal emphasized that the method measures only documented reactive catch history and can undervalue preventive tests that stop defects in CI before production incidents occur, while incomplete incident logging can make an otherwise useful suite appear unproven. He therefore recommends treating scores as evidence for owner review rather than deletion decisions, using them alongside coverage metrics and complementary approaches such as mutation testing, test impact analysis, chaos engineering, and observability.

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