Test File Discovery Is Still Unsolved

📰 Dev.to · Wes Nishio

Learn why test file discovery remains unsolved despite attempts with stem matching, content grepping, and hybrid discovery, and how to approach this problem

intermediate Published 30 Mar 2026
Action Steps
  1. Try stem matching to discover test files using tools like Python's difflib library to compare file names
  2. Apply content grepping using tools like grep or ack to search for keywords in test files
  3. Implement hybrid discovery by combining stem matching and content grepping to improve test file discovery accuracy
  4. Analyze the limitations of each approach and identify potential failure points
  5. Explore alternative solutions, such as machine learning-based approaches or custom scripting, to improve test file discovery
Who Needs to Know This

Developers and testers on a team can benefit from understanding the challenges of test file discovery to improve their testing workflows and collaboration

Key Insight

💡 No single approach to test file discovery is foolproof, and a combination of methods may be necessary to achieve accurate results

Share This
🚀 Test file discovery is still unsolved! 🤔 Explore stem matching, content grepping, and hybrid discovery to improve your testing workflow 💻

Key Takeaways

Learn why test file discovery remains unsolved despite attempts with stem matching, content grepping, and hybrid discovery, and how to approach this problem

Full Article

Given an implementation file, which test files are relevant? We tried stem matching, content grepping, and hybrid discovery. Each fails differently.
Read full article → ← Back to Reads