Test Tagging Strategy Without Tags

Organizing and executing tests efficiently is crucial for maintaining a robust and scalable test suite. Tagging tests helps streamline test runs for different purposes, such as integration, regression, smoke testing, and more.

While tags like @smoke and @regression seem useful, they often reflect the tester’s personal judgment. This can undermine test management because moving a test to another suite requires manually changing its tag. This manual process makes it hard to adjust the test scope dynamically, and you might end up creating new, more functional tags. To make test filtering more meaningful, tags should directly relate to the functionality and purpose of the tests.

Instead of using abstract tags like @smoke or @regression, consider filtering tests by clear, functional categories such as API, UI, E2E, or component tests. Embedding the type of test into the test file name can also help maintain consistency and clarity.

Here are some examples of more functional tags:

While these tags are not inherently bad, a consistent approach based on project structure and proper grouping of tests within test files can often eliminate the need for any tags.