Why Testing in Production is Necessary in Modern QA Strategies

Testing in production, often perceived as risky, is being increasingly adopted by major companies as part of their quality assurance processes to enhance software reliability in real-world conditions. This approach involves deploying validated code into live environments using controlled strategies like A/B testing, canary releases, feature toggles, blue-green deployments, shadow traffic testing, and chaos engineering, all aimed at identifying issues that may not be apparent in pre-production testing. These methods help in gaining faster feedback, improving test coverage, and facilitating user-centric testing, ultimately leading to more robust and fault-tolerant systems. The benefits include a realistic testing environment, cost-effectiveness, and early issue detection, but it requires careful implementation with feature flags and other techniques to mitigate risks. Additionally, the use of automation tools like testRigor can streamline testing in production by simplifying test case creation and reducing maintenance, further ensuring a seamless user experience and compliance with necessary regulations.