What causes most flaky tests in QA automation?

Shared state between tests, races, stale locators, env diffs between local/CI. Check the prior test in logs—it's the stealth killer.

How do you fix flaky tests without retries?

Repro locally first. Trace viewer. Ask if test or prod's wrong. Minimal change, like data-testid swap.

Will AI tools eliminate flaky tests forever?

Great for suggestions, lousy at judgment calls like prod bugs. Fundamentals first—AI's your sidekick, not boss.

🛠️ Developer Tools

Why 'Just Add a Retry' Kills QA Interviews Dead

Picture this: A senior QA candidate bombs an interview with one sentence. 'I just added a retry.' Here's why that mindset separates the hires from the also-rans.

theAIcatchup Apr 10, 2026 4 min read

QA engineer debugging flaky test in Playwright trace viewer with CI logs

⚡ Key Takeaways

Treat every flaky test as a root-cause bug, not random weather. 𝕏
Use three key questions: Reproducible? Test or prod wrong? Smallest fix? 𝕏
AI helps but can't replace human judgment on test vs. product issues. 𝕏

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theAIcatchup

Community-driven. Code-first.

#Playwright debugging #QA automation #flaky tests #interview tips #playwright #test flakiness

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Originally reported by Dev.to

⚡ Key Takeaways

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