PR automation testing

Testing template code is always a bit of a challenge. In the case of a Plural PR automation, you can always experiment using our UI, but if you need more thorough QA we provide two testing strategies:

• local execution with plural pr test
• contract testing with plural pr contracts

You can use both: the former is nice for lightweight validation of your PR automation's correctness, while the latter provides a robust CI strategy for more complex setups.

Locally Execute a PR Automation

You can run a PR automation locally at any time with:

plural pr test --file path/to/pr-automation-cr.yaml

It will parse the CRD locally, run a terminal-based wizard for its configuration, and apply the templates using the same codepath executed by the main PR automation API. No PR will actually be created, but you can see exactly what the templates will do and confirm they work as expected.

Contract Testing a PR Automation

Contract testing is a test strategy that takes the output of a set of APIs against expected inputs, renders it locally into your source control, and succeeds only if no differences are created. This provides a clear way to know if a prior contract was violated by showing the drift created, and integrates seamlessly into a code review + CI process, since you can execute it in your CI solution and view the changes in a PR diff.

The plural CLI has a command that wraps this approach with a single declarative file. You'll create a YAML file like this, say in a file named test/contracts.yaml: