Understanding system-tests

This section covers the core concepts of system-tests: what the components are, how they fit together, and what types of tests exist.

Architecture

• Architecture overview -- components, containers, data flow, and what system-tests is good (and bad) at
• Test flow -- the full test execution flow (setup, wait, test)

Scenarios

Scenarios define what gets tested and how. See the scenarios overview for the full picture, or jump to a specific type:

• End-to-end -- the most common scenario type, testing the full trace lifecycle
• Parametric -- lightweight tests for tracer/span interfaces
• AWS SSI / Onboarding -- auto-instrumentation on VMs
• Docker SSI -- auto-instrumentation in Docker containers
• Kubernetes lib injection -- auto-instrumentation in K8s
• Scenario lifecycle -- how scenarios execute step by step

Weblogs

Weblogs are the test applications that tracers instrument. See the weblogs overview, or:

• End-to-end weblog spec -- all endpoints and their expected behavior
• GraphQL weblog -- GraphQL-specific weblog

Reference

• Glossary -- definitions of pass, fail, xpass, xfail, enabled, disabled

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See also

• Running tests -- how to build and execute scenarios
• Writing tests -- how to add or modify tests
• Back to documentation index