Discussions

End to end testing is essential for validating user journeys, but integrating it into modern CI/CD pipelines can be tricky. Unlike unit or integration tests, these tests often take longer to execute and require multiple services, databases, or third-party APIs to be available. If not managed carefully, they can slow down deployments and reduce developer productivity.

A common practice is to run smoke-level end to end testing on every commit to catch major regressions early, while reserving the full suite for nightly or pre-release runs. Containerization and ephemeral environments also make it easier to spin up production-like systems on demand, ensuring that tests reflect real-world conditions without polluting shared environments.

Tools like Keploy can strengthen this setup by auto-generating test cases and mocks from real traffic, reducing manual scripting while keeping tests aligned with actual usage patterns. This makes end to end testing more maintainable and less of a bottleneck in CI/CD pipelines.