Test Workflows - Matrix and Sharding

info

This Workflows functionality is not available when running the Testkube Agent in Standalone Mode - Read More

Often you want to run a test with multiple scenarios or environments, either to distribute the load or to verify it on different setup.

Test Workflows have a built-in mechanism for all these cases - both static and dynamic.

Usage

Matrix and sharding features are supported in Services (services), and both Test Suite (execute) and Parallel Steps (parallel) operations.

Services (services)

kind: TestWorkflow
apiVersion: testworkflows.testkube.io/v1
metadata:
  name: example-matrix-services
spec:
  services:
    remote:
      matrix:
        browser:
        - driver: chrome
          image: selenium/standalone-chrome:4.21.0-20240517
        - driver: edge
          image: selenium/standalone-edge:4.21.0-20240517
        - driver: firefox
          image: selenium/standalone-firefox:4.21.0-20240517
      image: "{{ matrix.browser.image }}"
      description: "{{ matrix.browser.driver }}"
      readinessProbe:
        httpGet:
          path: /wd/hub/status
          port: 4444
        periodSeconds: 1
  steps:
  - shell: 'echo {{ shellquote(join(map(services.remote, "tojson(_.value)"), "\n")) }}'

Test Suite (execute)

kind: TestWorkflow
apiVersion: testworkflows.testkube.io/v1
metadata:
  name: example-matrix-test-suite
spec:
  steps:
  - execute:
      workflows:
      - name: k6-workflow-smoke
        matrix:
          target:
          - https://testkube.io
          - https://docs.testkube.io
        config:
          target: "{{ matrix.target }}"

Parallel Steps (parallel)

apiVersion: testworkflows.testkube.io/v1
kind: TestWorkflow
metadata:
  name: example-sharded-playwright
spec:
  content:
    git:
      uri: https://github.com/kubeshop/testkube
      paths:
      - test/playwright/playwright-project
  container:
    image: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright:v1.32.3-focal
    workingDir: /data/repo/test/playwright/playwright-project

  steps:
  - name: Install dependencies
    shell: 'npm ci'

  - name: Run tests
    parallel:
      count: 2
      transfer:
      - from: /data/repo
      shell: 'npx playwright test --shard {{ index + 1 }}/{{ count }}'

Syntax

This feature allows you to provide few properties:

• matrix to run the operation for different combinations
• count/maxCount to replicate or distribute the operation
• shards to provide the dataset to distribute among replicas

Both matrix and shards can be used together - all the sharding (shards + count/maxCount) will be replicated for each matrix combination.

Matrix

Matrix allows you to run the operation for multiple combinations. The values for each instance are accessible by matrix.<key>.

In example:

parallel:
  matrix:
    image: ['node:20', 'node:21', 'node:22']
    memory: ['1Gi', '2Gi']
  container:
    resources:
      requests:
        memory: '{{ matrix.memory }}'
  run:
    image: '{{ matrix.image }}'

Will instantiate 6 copies:

index	matrixIndex	matrix.image	matrix.memory	shardIndex
0	0	"node:20"	"1Gi"	0
1	1	"node:20"	"2Gi"	0
2	2	"node:21"	"1Gi"	0
3	3	"node:21"	"2Gi"	0
4	4	"node:22"	"1Gi"	0
5	5	"node:22"	"2Gi"	0

The matrix properties can be a static list of values, like:

matrix:
  browser: [ 'chrome', 'firefox', '{{ config.another }}' ]

or could be dynamic one, using Test Workflow's expressions:

matrix:
  files: 'glob("/data/repo/**/*.test.js")'

Sharding

Often you may want to distribute the load, to speed up the execution. To do so, you can use shards and count/maxCount properties.

• shards is a map of data to split across different instances
• count/maxCount are describing the number of instances to start
  • count defines static number of instances (always)
  • maxCount defines maximum number of instances (will be lower if there is not enough data in shards to split)

Replicas (count only)

parallel:
  count: 5
  description: "{{ index + 1 }} instance of {{ count }}"
  run:
    image: grafana/k6:latest

__

Static sharding (count + shards)

parallel:
  count: 2
  description: "{{ index + 1 }} instance of {{ count }}"
  shards:
    url: ["https://testkube.io", "https://docs.testkube.io", "https://app.testkube.io"]
  run:
    # shard.url for 1st instance == ["https://testkube.io", "https://docs.testkube.io"]
    # shard.url for 2nd instance == ["https://app.testkube.io"]
    shell: 'echo {{ shellquote(join(shard.url, "\n")) }}'

Dynamic sharding (maxCount + shards)

parallel:
  maxCount: 5
  shards:
    # when there will be less than 5 tests found - it will be 1 instance per 1 test
    # when there will be more than 5 tests found - they will be distributed similarly to static sharding
    testFiles: 'glob("cypress/e2e/**/*.js")'
  description: '{{ join(map(shard.testFiles, "relpath(_.value, \"cypress/e2e\")"), ", ") }}'

Similarly to matrix, the shards may contain a static list, or Test Workflow's expression.

Counters

Besides having the matrix.<key> and shard.<key> there are some counter variables available in Test Workflow's expressions:

• index and count - counters for total instances
• matrixIndex and matrixCount - counters for the combinations
• shardIndex and shardCount - counters for the shards

Matrix and sharding together

Sharding can be run along with matrix. In that case, for every matrix combination, we do have selected replicas/sharding. In example:

matrix:
  browser: ["chrome", "firefox"]
  memory: ["1Gi", "2Gi"]
count: 2
shards:
  url: ["https://testkube.io", "https://docs.testkube.io", "https://app.testkube.io"]

Will start 8 instances:

index	matrixIndex	matrix.browser	matrix.memory	shardIndex	shard.url
0	0	"chrome"	"1Gi"	0	["https://testkube.io", "https://docs.testkube.io"]
1	0	"chrome"	"1Gi"	1	["https://app.testkube.io"]
2	1	"chrome"	"2Gi"	0	["https://testkube.io", "https://docs.testkube.io"]
3	1	"chrome"	"2Gi"	1	["https://app.testkube.io"]
4	2	"firefox"	"1Gi"	0	["https://testkube.io", "https://docs.testkube.io"]
5	2	"firefox"	"1Gi"	1	["https://app.testkube.io"]
6	3	"firefox"	"2Gi"	0	["https://testkube.io", "https://docs.testkube.io"]
7	3	"firefox"	"2Gi"	1	["https://app.testkube.io"]