Breaking the chain of blame: true end-to-end testing with distributed tracing

End-to-end testing with distributed tracing, particularly using OpenTelemetry and tools like Tracetest, offers significant advantages in improving CI/CD pipelines by breaking the "chain of blame" often seen between frontend and backend teams. By proactively leveraging observability data, teams can quickly identify and address issues across complex systems, reducing the mean time to repair (MTTR) for test failures. Tracetest's integration with various testing frameworks, such as Playwright, makes it possible to execute tests against generated traces and OTel data, providing a comprehensive view of the entire user session and enabling more precise troubleshooting. The tool is available in both open-source and commercial versions, catering to different environments and offering advanced features. By incorporating distributed tracing into CI/CD processes, development and quality assurance teams can enhance their observability efforts and foster a culture of mutual accountability and improved data instrumentation, ultimately leading to more efficient problem-solving and better software delivery.