What is shift-left testing?
Shift-left testing means testing earlier in the development process, so defects are found when they are cheapest to fix.
On a timeline from left (design) to right (production), traditional QA happened near the end. Shifting left moves testing into design, development and pull requests.
In practice that means automated tests in CI, checks on every pull request and testability considered when features are designed.
Example
Instead of a QA cycle the week before release, accessibility and API contract checks run on every pull request, and the developer fixes issues the same day.
Best practices
- Run automated tests on every pull request
- Define acceptance criteria before building
- Make test results visible in code review
- Keep fast feedback under ten minutes
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