How can you use CI to identify mobile app issues more efficiently?

Having served over 100,000 developers with DevOps 1. make sure local changes work 2. make sure local changes work in a CI environment 3. make sure local changes don't conflict with other developer changes in the process of adopting CI you realise that code reviews are getting better since developers are committing less code more frequently People are becoming more independent since they can test if they are about to introduce breaking changes. This makes your team confident in the release process. But with all these benefits comes a cost as well - new process requires new tools and expertise. DevOps and now you either find an expert or become an expert. Or you can find a good partner that can serve your needs :)

Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice where code changes are automatically integrated into a shared repository for testing and validation. Benefits of CI 1. CI automates build and test processes, expediting development cycles for quicker releases. 2. Automated testing identifies and resolves issues early, ensuring more robust and stable mobile applications. 3. Provides real-time insights on code quality, aiding decision-making. 4. Automation reduces manual testing efforts, contributing to cost savings.

CI is a must have if you want to deliver quality apps. This way you make sure that adding a new feature or fixing a bug, does not break something else. The more developers you have in a team, the more CI should be mandatory. QA cannot test the entire app every time you add a commit, CI should be there to make sure your app is as stable as possible. A bad user experience because of bugs every new release is really bad for business. CI also improves fast deliveries because testing apps is quick.

Detecting bugs early: CI can run various tests (such as unit tests, integration tests, UI tests, etc.) on each code commit and report any errors or failures. This way, developers can fix the bugs before they accumulate and affect the app’s functionality or performance. Improving code quality: CI can also perform code analysis, code formatting, code coverage, code complexity, and other quality checks on each code commit and provide feedback and suggestions for improvement. This way, developers can maintain a consistent and high-quality codebase that follows the best practices and standards.

For the smaller and agile teams mobile more focused tools, like Codemagic are easier to adopt compared to more flexible systems.

When your pipelines fail or don't work as expected you often blame the CI because it seems to work on your local machine. A good practice is to consider that the failures are a good source of feedback. Re-running the same commits and getting frustrated over failed builds is natural, but good practice is to consider this as a part of your development flow. Take CI builds as they are and try to make them part of your development flow rather than a gatekeeper and annoyance when things don't always work as you expect. There may be a good reason for it.

Reducing manual effort: CI can automate the build process and generate the app artifacts (such as APK, IPA, etc.) that can be used for distribution or deployment. This way, developers can save time and resources that would otherwise be spent on manual tasks and focus on developing new features or enhancements.

CI should be always combined with automated testing and the level of automation can be one of the goals from the beginning. This gives predictability to quality and awareness for manual testing team in follow-on steps.

Testing infrastructure: Choose the right CI platform: Select a CI platform that offers the features and integrations you need for your specific app and development workflow. Invest in automation tools: Invest in robust automation tools for testing, code analysis, and build processes. Scale your testing infrastructure: Consider cloud-based solutions or on-premises labs to handle the demands of testing on multiple devices and platforms. Monitoring and alerting: Define clear metrics and thresholds: Clearly define the key metrics you want to monitor and set appropriate thresholds for triggering alerts. Prioritize alerts: Prioritize alerts based on the severity of the issue and the potential impact on users.