Debugging a flaky test — how I methodologically tamed an annoying bug

This blog post is an update of my journey in Djangonaut Space , an 8-week mentoring program for future open source developers in the Django ecosystem. Series: 3… 2… 1… becoming a Djangonaut Djangonaut Log 1: Lift-off and first week in Djangonaut Space Debugging a flaky test — how I methodologically tamed an annoying bug (you are here) A flaky is a automated test in software development that seemingly non-deterministically fails. I hate them with passion because they erode your trust to your test suite, can cause people to start ignoring test failures and are annoying as heck to deal with. Yesterday, I spent an afternoon dealing with one as part of my Djangonaut Space work for the Django Girls+ project. Here’s an exploration report for how I narrowed it down, found the root cause and fixed it. I followed my debugging process that relies to almost no prior knowledge about a project (other than knowing how to use your test runner) and that leaves all assumptions at the door. Crime scene…