10 Year Celebration, AI Appium, BDD and More TGNS110

What testing podcast is 10 years old today? Have you seen the new open source AI powered Appium script generation tool? And whatever happened to the BDD C Sharp tool Spec float? Find out in this episode of the Test Guild News show for the week of February 18th. So grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea and let's do this. So here at the Test Guild we are celebrating a decade of automation awesomeness. Today marks 10 years since the Test Guild Automation Podcast, formally named Test Talks first aired filled Test Automation Awesomeness. A huge thank you to the incredible community of listeners, guests and supporters who've joined us over the years on this journey. And to celebrate, I'm giving it away signed paperback copies of our book Automation Awesomeness that distills the 10 years of automation insights into bite sized 5 to 10 minute daily actual advice that you could put into place every day for a new or existing testing project. So it's formatted in a way where it has the advice from the expert and then a daily prompt to get you thinking about how you can implement that yourself with some space for you to jot down your thoughts as well. So it's almost like a automation journal. If you go through this after a year, you should achieve automation awesomeness. So if you were to go to Amazon now, this paperback copy is $15 not including shipping, but I'm giving them away for free. All you need to do is go to your favorite podcast player and pull up Test Guild Automation Podcast and leave a review to take a screenshot and then DM me your address and I'll send you a copy. And here's to 10 years more of automation awesomeness together. So a few months ago I wrote about how a lot of people were saying, hey, what's going on with SpecFlow? I believe it was acquired by a company and yet they weren't really updating it. So I was really excited to see this latest announcement. So in an awesome move to rejuvenate what used to be one of my go to C Shop open source BDD tools Spec Flow, Gasper has announced the launch of Rec and Roll and this fork is aimed to really ensuring the project's continuity in addressing its recent inactivity. And with SpecFlow's last stable release dating back to May 2022, its development team has been disbanded and Gasper, a former project contributor, felt compelled to take action. So ReconRole aims to provide official net8.0 support in a sustainable future for the Behavior Driven Development Framework, leveraging the community's collective efforts, and this initiative is not just a simple fork, it really represents a strategic pivot towards a community driven model and Rec Enroll will offer a subscription model for companies seeking guaranteed support, with the proceeds funding further development and compensating contributors. And the article also goes over how the transition from Spec Flow to Rec and Roll promises to be straightforward, with detailed migration guides available to assist users. And the project has already reported core assets including the BDD framework. So so if you're like me and you were a little worried about Spec Flow not getting updated, here's your chance to port over to Rec and Roll and guarantee your C BDD awesomeness going forward. I highly recommend you check this out and the links down below. And thank you Gasper for this awesome update and all you've done for the community. So what company has just released new integration with generative AI? Let's check it out. So this article goes over how keysight Technologies announced last week that it has integrated generative AI into its Eggplant testing suite, and this approach allows for the integration of diverse knowledge sources, transforming them into structured data for the automation creation of test scripts and digital twin models. And this article goes over how this process not only enhances the efficiency and scope of test design automation, but also introduces a level of adaptability with test assets being automatically updated in response to changing requirements and a planet series of generative AI underpinned by large language models with a flexible architecture that permits the interchange of LLMs to suit specific needs. And it also employs a retrieval augmented generation architecture reflecting the evolving standards in general AI technology. And a significant emphasis is placed on understanding the nuances of requirements through advanced natural language processing and understanding enabling the system to create a knowledge graph that aids the precise interpretation of requirements.

So really cool integration of generative AI with automation. And you definitely should check this out as well. So one of the topics that was hotly talked about at last week's Automation Guild was mocking and the really need for education around this area. So I found this article that can help you with this. And this article goes over the important but often overlooked part of testing web applications, the art of mocking API responses. And this one uses an example with Cypress and and this technique really allows developers and testers to simulate API behaviors, creating controlled test environments without relying on the actual external services. And by using Cypress's SCI Interpret command, users can interpret HTTP requests and provide predefined responses, streamlining the testing process by focusing on specific scenarios and responses. And this post also guides you through the process of mocking API data, using a practical example on the Angular real world application and and it demonstrates how to replicate real network calls with mock data for tags and articles, ensuring the test is not only faster but also more reliable, but also isolated from external dependencies. This approach not only enhances testing efficiency, but also significantly reduces the risk of unintended side effects, making it really an indispensable tool for testers aiming to ensure their application behaves in an expected way under various conditions, especially as it's released in the wild. So definitely a topic you should check out as a tester, so give it a try and let me know your thoughts in the comments down below. So our Platinum sponsor of Automation Guild last week made an announcement and this is how applitools has launched Autonomous. What is it? Well, Autonomous is a test automation solution designed to help organizations approach testing and enhance their brand experience. This article goes over how this platform is the first of its kind to offer fully autonomous testing to capabilities, enabling both technical and non technical users to create, maintain and execute functional and visual tests across various environments, browsers and devices with ease. And Autonomous leverages natural language processing to allow the creation of automated test in plain English, making advanced testing accessible to a broad range of professionals including developers, QA engineers, testers, digital marketers and this approach really aims to address the challenges businesses face and and delivering high quality digital products and feature rapidly and reliably amidst the pressure of fast paced development cycles and the need for consistent UI UX across multiple platforms. And by integrating codeless testing with traditional code based methods, applitool's autonomous solution promises to enhance test coverage, speed and quality and reduce the risk of bugs in production, streamlining the testing process. And it also goes over how some early adopters are really getting significant advancements and improvements using this method. So definitely technology you should check out and see if it can help you with your testing as well. Also, at this year's Automation Guild, Kobiton made a huge announcement and I just actually saw it announced on LinkedIn as well. So Shannon Lee posted this as well. Until Kobiton has announced the open sourcing of its Appium script generation tool. So this Kobiton tool was designed to automate the creation of test scripts for Appium, a framework that supports automated scripts across various platforms and can dramatically reduce the time required for script writing, developers can now generate a 30 step script in approximately 10 minutes, a task that could previously take up to four hours manually. And by making AI powered script generation open source, a lot of testers can now get their hands into it and see if it's going to live up to its promise that a lot of people have been hearing about it. The company CTO Frank, who talked at Automation Guild, noted that it not only broadens support for Appium compatible languages, but also invites the community to enhance script customization for specific needs. And this initiative is expected to dive further initiatives in adaptability and automated testing. So really cool release, open source and AI based that you definitely should check out in that comment in the links down below and in Security news, I stumbled across a new company and a new tool. So K Trust, a Tel Aviv based startup, is helping to redefine Kubernetes security with the launch of an automated Red Team system. So this moves beyond traditional vulnerability scanning. K Trust's approach simulates real world hacking, attempting to identify and address actual attack paths within Kubernetes clusters. And this proactive strategy, described as Continuous Threat Exposure Management by Gartner, really aims to streamline the focus of security teams on critical vulnerabilities rather than overwhelming them with an extensive list of potential issues. So if you're doing anything with Kubernetes and you're worried about security, here's a new tool you should definitely check out. Really Cool Approach to Security in an Automated Way and I mentioned Automation Guild a few times in this episode, but if you missed our 8th annual online testing event, Automation Guild last week I decided to offer an after event ticket so you can get instant access to all the sessions and recordings in the community that took place during the event. And if you register now, you'll still be able to join our ongoing monthly training sessions that will take place once a month from March to November for Automation Guild 2024 ticket holders. So register now and use the special code LinkedIn20 to get 20% off your after event ticket. And for links of everything value we covered in this news episode, head on over to links in the first comment down below. So that's it for this episode of the testkill News Show. I'm Joe. My mission is to help you succeed in creating end to end full stack Automation awesomeness. As always, test everything and keep the good Cheers.