Software Architect's Handbook

Automated testing

Automated tests should be executed as part of the automated build to ensure that no defects have been introduced since the last successful build. Automated testing, along with automated builds, allows the development team to validate the merged changes quickly. With continuous integration, errors are detected sooner, making them easier to resolve. Changesets tend to be smaller in size, and there will be fewer of them to integrate at once. This makes it easier to identify and resolve any issues that exist for a particular build. By integrating work continuously, we avoid a situation in which a large number of changes are merged at once.

It is important to have automated tests when practicing continuous integration. Although ...