How we transformed our testing workflow at TrackMan and why Cypress Cloud became our testing superhero
Picture this: It’s 3 PM on a Friday, you’ve just pushed what you think is a small fix, and now you’re staring at your terminal watching Cypress tests crawl by at a snail’s pace. One test… two tests… still going… Your weekend plans are slowly evaporating as you realize you’ve got another 45 minutes to wait before you know if your code actually works.
Note: Don’t deploy on Fridays!
Sound familiar? That was our reality at TrackMan not too long ago.
The Dark Ages: When Testing Felt Like Punishment
Let me paint you a picture of how things used to be. Our Cypress test suite had grown into this massive beast that took nearly an hour to complete. An entire hour! We were running everything sequentially, watching tests execute one by one like we were back in the dial-up internet era.
The worst part? When something broke (and trust me, things broke), debugging was an absolute nightmare. You’d get a cryptic failure message, maybe a screenshot if you were lucky, and then you’d have to play detective, trying to figure out what went wrong. It was like trying to solve a murder mystery with half the clues missing.
We were using Cypress Custom Commands, which seemed like a good idea at the time, but as our test suite grew, maintaining and understanding the flow became increasingly difficult. The whole experience was just… painful.
The Lightbulb Moment: Enter Cypress Cloud
After months of frustration and countless hours lost to slow test runs, we finally decided enough was enough. We’d heard whispers about Cypress Cloud, but like many teams, we were hesitant to make the switch. “Another tool to learn? Another service to manage?” But honestly, we were desperate.
Best decision we ever made!
The Transformation: From Hours to Minutes
Here’s where things get exciting. Remember that nearly 1-hour test suite I mentioned? After moving to Cypress Cloud and implementing parallelization, it now runs in just 7 minutes.
Let me repeat that: 7 minutes.
I’m not exaggerating. We went from grabbing coffee, checking emails, and sometimes even taking walks during test runs to barely having time to refill our water bottles.
What Made the Magic Happen
Smart Test Orchestration: The Brain Behind the Operation
Cypress Cloud’s Smart Test Orchestration is like having a really smart project manager for your tests. Instead of running tests in some random order, it analyzes your test history and intelligently distributes them across multiple machines. Tests that typically take longer get started first, while quicker tests fill in the gaps. It’s beautiful to watch in action.
Parallelization: Divide and Conquer
We’re currently running with parallelization enabled, and it’s a game-changer. Instead of one machine plodding through all our tests, we have multiple machines working simultaneously. Think of it like having multiple checkout lanes at a grocery store instead of making everyone wait in one long line.
With around 44,000 test results per month (yes, we test a lot!), this parallel execution saves us countless hours every single month.
Page Object Model: A Much-Needed Architectural Shift
While we were at it, we also moved from Cypress Custom Commands to the Page Object Model (POM). This wasn’t directly related to Cypress Cloud, but it complemented our new setup perfectly.
Custom Commands felt scattered and hard to maintain as our test suite grew. With POM, everything is organized, reusable, and much easier to understand. Each page has its own class with methods that represent the actions you can perform on that page. It’s clean, it’s logical, and it makes onboarding new team members so much smoother.
Test Replay: The Debugging Superhero We Never Knew We Needed
Now, let’s talk about the feature that has truly saved our sanity: Test Replay.
Remember those debugging nightmares I mentioned earlier? They’re basically extinct now. When a test fails, Test Replay captures everything. And I mean everything. Every click, every hover, every network request, every DOM change it’s all there, recorded and ready to be analyzed.
You can literally watch your test execution step by step, like you’re sitting right next to the browser as it runs. You can see exactly where things went wrong, what the page looked like at that moment, and what data was flowing through your application.
Test Analytics: Your Personal Test Performance Detective
But Test Replay is just the tip of the iceberg. Cypress Cloud’s Test Analytics dashboard has become our command-center for test optimization. Here’s where things get really interesting.
The Slowest Tests view is pure gold. It shows you exactly which tests are dragging down your entire suite. We discovered that three specific tests were accounting for nearly 40% of our total execution time! Once we optimized those, we shaved off another couple of minutes from our already improved 7-minute runtime.
The Failure Reasons analytics helped us identify patterns we never would have caught manually. Turns out, we had several tests failing due to timing issues that only happened when running in parallel. The dashboard made it crystal clear which tests were problematic and why.
Flaky Test Detection: No More “It Works on My Machine”
Here’s something that used to drive us absolutely crazy: flaky tests. You know, those tests that pass 90% of the time and then randomly fail, usually right before an important release.
Cypress Cloud’s Flaky Test Detection is like having a data scientist dedicated to analyzing your test stability. It tracks your test results over time and flags tests that show inconsistent behavior. We can now see exactly how flaky a test is (like “passes 85% of the time”) and prioritize which ones to fix first.
The best part? It gives you insights into what might be causing the flakiness. Network timeouts? Element loading issues? Race conditions? The data helps you pinpoint the root cause instead of just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.
Cypress Cloud AI: The Future is Here
And then there’s the newest addition that honestly feels like magic: Cypress Cloud AI. When a test fails, it doesn’t just show you what happened it analyzes the failure and suggests what might have gone wrong.
I’m talking about actual AI-powered suggestions like “This test appears to be failing due to a network timeout. Consider increasing the timeout or mocking this network request.” It’s like having a senior QA engineer looking over your shoulder, except this one never gets tired or takes coffee breaks.
The level of detail you get across all these features is incredible. Network timings, console logs, screenshots at every step it’s like having X-ray vision for your tests, but with a smart assistant helping you interpret what you’re seeing.
The Real-World Impact: Beyond Just Speed
Sure, going from 1 hour to 7 minutes is impressive, but the real benefits go much deeper:
Developer Happiness: Our team actually looks forward to running tests now. No more dreading that pre-deployment test run.
Faster Feedback Loops: We can iterate much quicker. Push a fix, wait 7 minutes, know if it works. The faster feedback makes us more confident and more productive.
Better Test Coverage: When tests run quickly, you’re more likely to write more of them. We’ve actually expanded our test coverage because the pain of long execution times is gone.
Easier Onboarding: New team members can understand our test failures quickly thanks to Test Replay. No more spending hours explaining “what probably went wrong.”
Predictable Releases: With reliable, fast tests and amazing debugging tools, our releases became much more predictable and less stressful.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Let me put this in perspective with some real numbers:
Test execution time: From ~60 minutes to 7 minutes (88% reduction)
Monthly test results: 44,000+ tests handled smoothly
Debugging time: Reduced by approximately 70% thanks to Test Replay
Developer productivity: Immeasurably better (seriously, the mood in our standups improved!)
What We Learned Along the Way
It’s Not Just About the Tools
While Cypress Cloud provided the technical foundation for our improvement, we learned that success also required some process changes:
Embrace parallelization thinking: We had to restructure some tests that were inadvertently dependent on each other.
Invest in good test data management: With parallel execution, you need to be more careful about test data isolation.
Monitor and optimize continuously: The analytics provided by Cypress Cloud help us continuously improve our test suite.
The ROI is Real
Yes, Cypress Cloud is a paid service, but the time savings alone justify the cost. When you factor in developer productivity, faster release cycles, and reduced debugging time, it’s honestly a no-brainer.
Looking Forward
Moving to Cypress Cloud wasn’t just a technical upgrade — it was a complete transformation of how we approach testing. We went from viewing tests as a necessary evil to treating them as a competitive advantage.
If you’re sitting there reading this while waiting for your own slow test suite to finish, or if you’re tired of spending hours debugging mysterious test failures, I can’t recommend Cypress Cloud enough. The combination of Smart Test Orchestration, parallelization, and Test Replay creates a testing experience that’s not just faster, but genuinely enjoyable.
Trust me, your experience will thank me!
Have you made the switch to Cypress Cloud, or are you still on the fence? I’d love to hear about your testing experiences in the comments below. And if you decide to give Cypress Cloud a try, let me know how it goes, I’m always excited to hear about teams escaping the slow-test nightmare!
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