If you are using auto-instrumentation for one of these providers, you can skip the rest of the setup steps below.
If you are using a cloud CI provider without access to the underlying worker nodes, such as GitHub Actions or CircleCI, configure the library to use the Agentless mode. For this, set the following environment variables:
DD_CIVISIBILITY_AGENTLESS_ENABLED=true (Required)
Enables or disables Agentless mode. Default: false
DD_API_KEY (Required)
The Datadog API key used to upload the test results. Default: (empty)
Additionally, configure the Datadog site to which you want to send data.
DD_SITE (Required)
The Datadog site to upload results to. Default: datadoghq.com
If you are running tests on an on-premises CI provider, such as Jenkins or self-managed GitLab CI, install the Datadog Agent on each worker node by following the Agent installation instructions.
This is the recommended option as it allows you to automatically link test results to logs and underlying host metrics.
If you are using a Kubernetes executor, Datadog recommends using the Datadog Operator.
The operator includes Datadog Admission Controller which can automatically inject the tracer library into the build pods.
Note: If you use the Datadog Operator, there is no need to download and inject the tracer library since the Admission Controller can do this for you, so you can skip the corresponding step below.
However, you still need to make sure that your pods set the environment variables or command-line parameters necessary to enable Test Visibility.
If you are not using Kubernetes or can’t use the Datadog Admission Controller and the CI provider is using a container-based executor, set the DD_TRACE_AGENT_URL environment variable (which defaults to http://localhost:8126) in the build container running the tracer to an endpoint that is accessible from within that container. Note: Using localhost inside the build references the container itself and not the underlying worker node or any container where the Agent might be running in.
DD_TRACE_AGENT_URL includes the protocol and port (for example, http://localhost:8126) and takes precedence over DD_AGENT_HOST and DD_TRACE_AGENT_PORT, and is the recommended configuration parameter to configure the Datadog Agent’s URL for CI Visibility.
If you still have issues connecting to the Datadog Agent, use the Agentless Mode.
Note: When using this method, tests are not correlated with logs and infrastructure metrics.
Manual instrumentation
This section is only required if your CI provider does not support auto-instrumentation. If you selected CI Provider with Auto-Instrumentation Support in the Configuring reporting method section above, skip this section and proceed to Configuration settings.
If your CI provider does not support auto-instrumentation (for example, if you selected Cloud CI provider (Agentless) or On-Premises CI Provider (Datadog Agent)), follow these steps to install the library and instrument your tests manually.
Additional Test Optimization features have their own configuration options documented on their respective pages.
Adding custom tags to tests
You can add custom tags to your tests by using the current active test:
require"datadog/ci"# inside your testDatadog::CI.active_test&.set_tag("test_owner","my_team")# test continues normally# ...
To create filters or group by fields for these tags, you must first create facets. For more information about adding tags, see the Adding Tags section of the Ruby custom instrumentation documentation.
Adding custom measures to tests
Like tags, you can add custom measures to your tests by using the current active test:
require"datadog/ci"# inside your testDatadog::CI.active_test&.set_metric("memory_allocations",16)# test continues normally# ...
It can be useful to have rich tracing information about your tests that includes time spent performing database operations or other external calls, as seen in the following flame graph:
You can enable automatic APM instrumentation by adding the following line in your test_helper/spec_helper:
Note: In CI mode, these traces are submitted to Test Optimization, and they do not show up in Datadog APM.
For the full list of available instrumentation methods, see the tracing documentation
Collecting Git metadata
Datadog uses Git information for visualizing your test results and grouping them by repository, branch, and commit. Git metadata is automatically collected by the test instrumentation from CI provider environment variables and the local .git folder in the project path, if available.
If you are running tests in non-supported CI providers or with no .git folder, you can set the Git information manually using environment variables. These environment variables take precedence over any auto-detected information. Set the following environment variables to provide Git information:
DD_GIT_REPOSITORY_URL
URL of the repository where the code is stored. Both HTTP and SSH URLs are supported. Example: git@github.com:MyCompany/MyApp.git, https://github.com/MyCompany/MyApp.git
DD_GIT_BRANCH
Git branch being tested. Leave empty if providing tag information instead. Example: develop
DD_GIT_TAG
Git tag being tested (if applicable). Leave empty if providing branch information instead. Example: 1.0.1
DD_GIT_COMMIT_SHA
Full commit hash. Example: a18ebf361cc831f5535e58ec4fae04ffd98d8152
DD_GIT_COMMIT_MESSAGE
Commit message. Example: Set release number
DD_GIT_COMMIT_AUTHOR_NAME
Commit author name. Example: John Smith
DD_GIT_COMMIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL
Commit author email. Example: john@example.com
DD_GIT_COMMIT_AUTHOR_DATE
Commit author date in ISO 8601 format. Example: 2021-03-12T16:00:28Z
DD_GIT_COMMIT_COMMITTER_NAME
Commit committer name. Example: Jane Smith
DD_GIT_COMMIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL
Commit committer email. Example: jane@example.com
DD_GIT_COMMIT_COMMITTER_DATE
Commit committer date in ISO 8601 format. Example: 2021-03-12T16:00:28Z
Using library’s public API for unsupported test frameworks
If you use RSpec, Minitest, or Cucumber, do not use the manual testing API, as Test Optimization automatically instruments them and sends the test results to Datadog. The manual testing API is incompatible with already supported testing frameworks.
Use the manual testing API only if you use an unsupported testing framework or have a different testing mechanism.
Full public API documentation is available on YARD site.
Domain model
The API is based around four concepts: test session, test module, test suite, and test.
Test session
A test session represents a test command run.
To start a test session, call Datadog::CI.start_test_session and pass the Datadog service and tags (such as the test framework
you are using).
When all your tests have finished, call Datadog::CI::TestSession#finish, which closes the session and sends the session
trace to the backend.
Test module
A test module represents a smaller unit of work within a session.
For supported test frameworks, test module is always same as test session.
For your use case, this could be a package in your componentized application.
To start a test module, call Datadog::CI.start_test_module and pass the name of the module.
When the module run has finished, call Datadog::CI::TestModule#finish.
Test suite
A test suite comprises a set of tests that test similar functionality.
A single suite usually corresponds to a single file where tests are defined.
Create test suites by calling Datadog::CI#start_test_suite and passing the name of the test suite.
Call Datadog::CI::TestSuite#finish when all the related tests in the suite have finished their execution.
Test
A test represents a single test case that is executed as part of a test suite.
Usually it corresponds to a method that contains testing logic.
Create tests in a suite by calling Datadog::CI#start_test or Datadog::CI.trace_test and passing the name of the test and name of the test suite. Test suite name must be the same as name of the test suite started in previous step.
Call Datadog::CI::Test#finish when a test has finished execution.
Code example
The following code represents example usage of the API:
Use DD_TEST_SESSION_NAME to define the name of the test session and the related group of tests. Examples of values for this tag would be:
unit-tests
integration-tests
smoke-tests
flaky-tests
ui-tests
backend-tests
If DD_TEST_SESSION_NAME is not specified, the default value used is a combination of the:
CI job name
Command used to run the tests (such as yarn test)
The test session name needs to be unique within a repository to help you distinguish different groups of tests.
When to use DD_TEST_SESSION_NAME
There’s a set of parameters that Datadog checks to establish correspondence between test sessions. The test command used to execute the tests is one of them. If the test command contains a string that changes for every execution, such as a list of files to execute, Datadog considers the sessions to be unrelated to each other. For example:
bundle exec rspec my_spec.rb my_other_spec.rb
Datadog recommends using DD_TEST_SESSION_NAME if your test commands vary between executions.
Further reading
Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles: