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Related papers: Flakify: A Black-Box, Language Model-based Predict…

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Like classical software, quantum software systems rely on automated testing. However, their inherently probabilistic outputs make them susceptible to quantum flakiness -- tests that pass or fail inconsistently without code changes. Such…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-03-11 Janakan Sivaloganathan , Ainaz Jamshidi , Andriy Miranskyy , Lei Zhang

Test flakiness forms a major testing concern. Flaky tests manifest non-deterministic outcomes that cripple continuous integration and lead developers to investigate false alerts. Industrial reports indicate that on a large scale, the…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2021-12-10 Sarra Habchi , Guillaume Haben , Mike Papadakis , Maxime Cordy , Yves Le Traon

Flaky tests pass and fail non-deterministically when run on the same version of code. Although many techniques have been proposed to detect, debug, and repair flaky tests, reproducing their failures remains a major challenge due to their…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-05-22 Suzzana Rafi , Mahbub-Ul-Hoque Sumon , Md Erfan , Maruf Morshed Khan , August Shi , Wing Lam

Flaky tests are tests that nondeterministically pass and fail in unchanged code. These tests can be detrimental to developers' productivity. Particularly when tests run in continuous integration environments, the tests may be competing for…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2024-10-28 Denini Silva , Martin Gruber , Satyajit Gokhale , Ellen Arteca , Alexi Turcotte , Marcelo d'Amorim , Wing Lam , Stefan Winter , Jonathan Bell

Flaky tests (tests with non-deterministic outcomes) pose a major challenge for software testing. They are known to cause significant issues such as reducing the effectiveness and efficiency of testing and delaying software releases. In…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2022-12-05 Shawn Rasheed , Amjed Tahir , Jens Dietrich , Negar Hashemi , Lu Zhang

Flaky tests obstruct software development, and studying and proposing mitigations against them has therefore become an important focus of software engineering research. To conduct sound investigations on test flakiness, it is crucial to…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-05-09 Martin Gruber , Gordon Fraser

Flaky tests are a common problem in software testing. They produce inconsistent results when executed multiple times on the same code, invalidating the assumption that a test failure indicates a software defect. Recent work on LLM-based…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-01-15 Alexander Berndt , Thomas Bach , Rainer Gemulla , Marcus Kessel , Sebastian Baltes

Background: Test flakiness is identified as a major issue that compromises the regression testing process of complex software systems. Flaky tests manifest non-deterministic behaviour, send confusing signals to developers, and break their…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2021-04-16 Sarra Habchi , Maxime Cordy , Mike Papadakis , Yves Le Traon

Developers always wish to ensure that their latest changes to the code base do not break existing functionality. If test cases fail, they expect these failures to be connected to the submitted changes. Unfortunately, a flaky test can be the…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2021-09-10 Azeem Ahmad , Ola Leifler , Kristian Sandahl

Tests that cause spurious failures without any code changes, i.e., flaky tests, hamper regression testing, increase maintenance costs, may shadow real bugs, and decrease trust in tests. While the prevalence and importance of flakiness is…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2022-02-15 Martin Gruber , Stephan Lukasczyk , Florian Kroiß , Gordon Fraser

The role of regression testing in software testing is crucial as it ensures that any new modifications do not disrupt the existing functionality and behaviour of the software system. The desired outcome is for regression tests to yield…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-06-09 Xin Sun , Daniel Ståhl , Kristian Sandahl

In recent years, software engineers have explored ways to assist quantum software programmers. Our goal in this paper is to continue this exploration and see if quantum software programmers deal with some problems plaguing classical…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-12-05 Lei Zhang , Mahsa Radnejad , Andriy Miranskyy

Flaky tests exhibit non-deterministic behavior during execution and they may pass or fail without any changes to the program under test. Detecting and classifying these flaky tests is crucial for maintaining the robustness of automated test…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-02-06 Riddhi More , Jeremy S. Bradbury

Testing and debugging quantum software pose significant challenges due to the inherent complexities of quantum mechanics, such as superposition and entanglement. One challenge is indeterminacy, a fundamental characteristic of quantum…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-02-10 Khushdeep Kaur , Dongchan Kim , Ainaz Jamshidi , Lei Zhang

Non-deterministic test behavior, or flakiness, is common and dreaded among developers. Researchers have studied the issue and proposed approaches to mitigate it. However, the vast majority of previous work has only considered…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2023-10-10 Martin Gruber , Muhammad Firhard Roslan , Owain Parry , Fabian Scharnböck , Phil McMinn , Gordon Fraser

Flaky tests, tests that pass or fail nondeterministically without changes to code or environment, pose a serious threat to software reliability. While classical software engineering has developed a rich body of dynamic and static techniques…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-12-29 Dongchan Kim , Hamidreza Khoramrokh , Lei Zhang , Andriy Miranskyy

Fault localization (FL) is a critical step in debugging, which typically relies on repeated executions to pinpoint faulty code regions. However, repeated executions can be impractical in the presence of non-deterministic failures or high…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2026-05-13 Ahmadreza Saboor Yaraghi , Golnaz Gharachorlu , Sakina Fatima , Lionel C. Briand , Ruiyuan Wan , Ruifeng Gao

Flaky tests cause significant problems as they can interrupt automated build processes that rely on all tests succeeding and undermine the trustworthiness of tests. Numerous causes of test flakiness have been identified, and program…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2022-08-03 Jens Dietrich , Shawn Rasheed , Amjed Tahir

Reliably predicting the behavior of language models -- such as whether their outputs are correct or have been adversarially manipulated -- is a fundamentally challenging task. This is often made even more difficult as frontier language…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-02 Dylan Sam , Marc Finzi , J. Zico Kolter

Flaky tests produce inconsistent outcomes without code changes, creating major challenges for software developers. An industrial case study reported that developers spend 1.28% of their time repairing flaky tests at a monthly cost of…

Software Engineering · Computer Science 2025-04-24 Owain Parry , Gregory Kapfhammer , Michael Hilton , Phil McMinn