What is test orchestration? A guide to getting started

When you’re building a web app with a team, if someone pushes code, your CI pipeline will have to run all tests, which might include unit tests, integration tests, and E2E tests. However, the problem with this is that it might take 30 or more minutes to complete. Moreover, a single failed test can stop all other ones from running, and no one knows which tests to prioritize.

In this situation, you need test orchestration. It helps you avoid unnecessary delays and allows your team to focus on more critical tasks instead of constantly monitoring your test pipeline.

This post will provide an overview of test orchestration. You’ll understand what it is, its components, and how to implement it.

What is test orchestration?

Test orchestration is the process of setting up, managing, and running automated tests in an efficient way. It makes sure the right tests are run in the right places, at the right time, and with the right set of tools.

For instance, in software development, you might need to run different kinds of tests at different times. Also, you might want to do performance tests, E2E tests, integration tests, and unit tests. With test orchestration, it becomes easier to plan and run these tests.

Test orchestration is important because it:

• Speeds up software delivery by automating and managing tests in a smart way.
• Catches bugs early, when they’re easier and cheaper to fix. Just as Karen N. Johnson said, “In software testing, the earlier a bug is found, the cheaper it is to fix.”
• Reduces manual errors and delays.
• Boosts team productivity by freeing testers from repetitive tasks.

Test orchestration vs. test automation

People often misunderstand the differences between test orchestration and test automation. However, here’s a clear comparison table highlighting the difference between the two concepts.

Key components of test orchestration

 

Test orchestration is made up of different components that work together to plan, run, and monitor tests. They include:

• Automation of individual test units: All tests involved in the process must be automated. Without automation, orchestration can’t function effectively. According to Frank DeGeorge, “The purpose of automated testing is to reduce the risk of failure of your application.”
• Test sequencing and scheduling: Tests are set up to run at certain times and in a certain order. This makes sure that resources are used well.
• Test data management: The right data must be prepared and available for each test. Managing test data ensures tests produce valid results.
• Environment management: Test environments (servers, databases, devices) are automatically set up as needed. This guarantees consistency and isolation, preventing one test from affecting another.
• Results collection and reporting: Test outcomes are gathered, analyzed, and presented in dashboards or reports. This gives a clear view of software quality and testing progress.
• Error handling and recovery: The orchestration system detects failures and either retries tests, skips dependent tests, or alerts the team.
• Integration with the CI/CD pipeline: Test orchestration is tightly connected to CI/CD tools, allowing tests to run automatically whenever code changes.

Benefits of test orchestration

Here are some of the key benefits test orchestration brings to your testing process and development cycle.

Test orchestration runs tests continuously and in the right order, so bugs and issues are caught early in the development cycle

Early detection of errors

Test orchestration runs tests continuously and in the right order, so bugs and issues are caught early in the development cycle. Fixing problems early prevents them from growing into bigger and more complex issues later.

Faster feedback loop

Test orchestration reduces delays in testing. This means that developers will get quick feedback on their code changes. It’ll help them resolve issues faster and keep the development process moving smoothly.

Improves automation coverage

Test orchestration allows you to run a wide range of automated tests across different parts of the application, environments, and platforms. This increases test coverage, reducing the chance that critical bugs go unnoticed.

Increases productivity

Test orchestration frees testers from manual work by automating repetitive tasks. It allows them to focus on complex testing scenarios and creative problem-solving. This increases productivity among team members.

Tools for test orchestration

Choosing the appropriate tools can significantly impact your orchestration process. Here are some common sets of tools associated with test orchestration.

CI/CD platforms

CI/CD platforms automate the building, testing, and deployment of software. They trigger test execution automatically whenever code changes occur. They also manage the sequence of tests and integrate testing into the overall software delivery pipeline. Examples:

• Jenkins
• GitHub Actions
• GitLab CI

Dedicated orchestration tools

These tools specialize in managing and optimizing the orchestration of tests across different environments and stages of the pipeline. They offer advanced features like intelligent test scheduling, parallel execution, environment provisioning, and detailed reporting. This makes the orchestration process more efficient and scalable. Examples:

• Azure DevOps
• CircleCI
• Harness

Testing tools

These are the frameworks and libraries used to create and run automated tests themselves. While they don’t orchestrate tests on their own, they integrate into orchestration platforms to execute the actual test scripts across browsers, devices, and APIs. Examples:

• Mocha
• Playwright
• Tricentis Tosca

Getting started with test orchestration

Adding test orchestration to your workflow doesn’t have to be complex. Here’s a simple set of steps for how you can implement test orchestration.

1. Plan and define pipeline stages

This is the first step in implementing test orchestration. You’ll need a clear testing strategy before you add test orchestration to your workflow. You have to break down your CI/CD pipelines into stages and decide what types of tests should run at each stage and in what order.

The key activities in this step include:

• Defining the scope and objectives of the testing.
• Designing the pipeline stages.
• Assigning roles and responsibilities.
• Documenting the plan.

Good planning ensures the orchestration pipeline is well-structured, efficient, and aligned with business goals.

2. Automate test cases and integrate tools

The next step after planning is to automate your test cases and integrate the necessary tools.

Start by identifying the types of testing you need, whether it’s a unit test, an integration test, or an end-to-end test. Then write these tests using automation frameworks. After that, select and configure an orchestration platform and integrate it with the testing tools to ensure that tests run automatically.

3. Set up the environment and data management

This step ensures that automated tests are reliable, consistent, and reflect how your application will behave in production. Tests often fail not only because of a bug in the code but also because the environment wasn’t set up correctly or the data was not accurate.

Monitoring how the test performs and analyzing the results is the final and ongoing step in test orchestration

4. Monitor and analyze test execution

Monitoring how the test performs and analyzing the results is the final and ongoing step in test orchestration. It helps you identify issues faster, understand test trends, and improve the reliability of your pipeline.

Best practices for effective test orchestration

Here are some best practices that ensure your test orchestration is reliable and aligned with your development goals.

• Set clear goals: Define what you want to achieve with test orchestration from the start—whether it’s faster feedback, better test coverage, or reduced manual effort. Having clear objectives helps guide your strategy and measure success.
• Organize tests by priority: Prioritize tests based on risk, business impact, or failure rate. Run critical and high-risk tests earlier or more frequently to catch major issues sooner and optimize resource use.
• Choose the right tools: Select tools that fit your tech stack, team skills, and project needs. The tools should integrate well with your CI/CD pipelines, support your test types, and scale as your project grows.
• Continuously improve: Test orchestration is not something you just set up and leave. Instead, you need to regularly review test results, pipeline performance, and feedback from your team. Then, use these insights to refine test cases, update priorities, optimize workflows, and adopt new tools or practices as needed.

Challenges in test orchestration

There are some common challenges that come with test orchestration that you need to know to help you plan better.

Flaky tests that break pipelines

Flaky tests are tests that sometimes pass and sometimes fail without any changes in the code. They cause instability in the pipeline because they can trigger false alarms, making it difficult to trust test results.

Solution:

Implement retry logic to automatically rerun flaky tests, but also track and fix their root causes to improve stability.

Long execution times

As the test suite grows, running tests sequentially can take too long, delaying feedback and releases. This is a problem, especially for complex tests or when multiple environments are involved.

Solution:

Use test parallelization to run tests simultaneously across different machines or environments, significantly reducing execution time.

Poor visibility into failures

When tests fail, a lack of clear and detailed failure information makes it difficult and time-consuming to diagnose and resolve issues.

Solution:

Use centralized CI dashboards that provide real-time, detailed reports with logs, screenshots, and failure analysis to speed up troubleshooting.

Tool integration issues

Getting your testing tools, CI platform, environment setup, and reporting system to work together can be frustrating, especially across different teams or stacks.

Solution:

Choose tools with strong integration support. For example, you can use tools like Tosca and qTest, as they offer built-in CI/CD integrations. After that, once your integration is stable, implement alerting systems to notify teams about issues.

Conclusion

Test orchestration plays a key role in modern software development by making your testing process faster, smarter, and more reliable. As a result, it helps teams catch bugs early, speed up feedback loops, and reduce the chaos in CI/CD pipelines.

Furthermore, by automating and coordinating tests efficiently, teams can deliver reliable software more quickly and with less manual effort.

This post was written by Chosen Vincent. Chosen is a web developer and technical writer. He has proficient knowledge in JavaScript, ReactJS, NextJS, React Native, Nodejs and Database. Aside from coding, Vincent loves playing chess and discussing tech related topics with other developers.