SelfHealingTests

SelfHealingTests is a concept in automated software testing that refers to test suites and test execution processes designed to adapt to changes in the system under test or its environment. When a test fails due to a non-functional change, self-healing tests attempt to repair the failure automatically or semi-automatically so that the overall test run can continue, reducing maintenance overhead and flakiness.

Techniques used include dynamic locator strategies for user interfaces, tolerant assertions that allow variance in non-critical outputs, and automated substitution of a failing step with an equivalent alternative that preserves the intent of the test. Repairs can be rule-based, using a library of known remedies, or guided by historical failure data and lightweight machine learning or heuristics.

Self-healing can be applied at different levels, including unit, integration, and end-to-end tests, and may operate at the test script level, the test runner, or the orchestration layer. In UI testing, common approaches are resilient selectors, element aliasing, and retry policies that preserve test intent while accommodating minor DOM or layout changes. In API or service tests, adaptive payloads and flexible validations can serve a similar purpose.

Benefits include reduced manual maintenance, fewer flaky tests, and faster feedback in continuous integration pipelines. Risks involve the potential to mask real defects, reduced visibility into failure causes, and added complexity in governance and traceability. Self-healing is an area of ongoing research and some commercial tools offer self-healing capabilities as part of broader test automation platforms.

See also test automation, flaky tests, self-healing software.