Testing Strategies in CI Pipelines: A Decision Framework

Calendar February 22, 2026
Cicd
Intermediate
Ci-Pipeline-Design, Test-Strategy, Test-Optimization, Flaky-Test-Management
Testing, Ci, Unit-Tests, Integration-Tests, E2e-Tests, Test-Parallelization, Flaky-Tests, Coverage
Github-Actions, Jest, Pytest, Go-Test, Junit, Allure

Testing Strategies in CI Pipelines#

Every CI pipeline faces the same tension: run enough tests to catch bugs before they merge, but not so many that developers wait twenty minutes for feedback on a one-line change. The answer is not running everything everywhere. It is running the right tests at the right time.

The Three Test Tiers#

Tests divide into three tiers based on execution speed, failure signal quality, and infrastructure requirements.

Testing Strategy Selection: Unit, Integration, E2E, and Beyond

Calendar February 22, 2026
Developer-Workflows
Intermediate, Advanced
Testing-Strategy-Design, Test-Type-Selection, Test-Suite-Architecture, Quality-Assurance-Planning
Testing, Unit-Testing, Integration-Testing, E2e-Testing, Contract-Testing, Property-Based-Testing, Snapshot-Testing, Tdd, Testing-Pyramid
Jest, Pytest, Go-Test, Cypress, Playwright, Pact, Vitest, Testcontainers

Testing Strategy Selection#

Choosing the right mix of tests determines whether your test suite catches real bugs or just consumes CI minutes. There is no single correct answer – the right strategy depends on your system architecture, team size, deployment cadence, and the cost of production failures.

The Testing Pyramid#

The classic testing pyramid, introduced by Mike Cohn, prescribes many unit tests at the base, fewer integration tests in the middle, and a small number of end-to-end tests at the top.