Test suite performance

TDD relies on quick feedback cycles, therefore Delivery Teams SHOULD make it possible to run individual test suites within the ecosystem of an application in under 30 seconds. Furthermore, it SHOULD be possible to run the test suites of an entire application in under 5 minutes. If this time limit is exceeded, Delivery Teams SHOULD plan in effort to reduce test suite run times.

Test suite performance is also an indicator of structural defects.

Reading Materials

• TDD test suites should run in 10 seconds or less - Mark Seemann
• Are Slow Tests Killing Your Feedback Loop? - Jon Reid
• Working Effectively with Legacy Code - book by Michael Feathers

Marking scheme

• Can describe why test suite performance is important.
• Can identify structural defects that result in poor test suite performance.
• Can identify that a test suite has poor test suite performance.
• Can improve the performance of a slow test suite.