Welcome to the 289th issue!

Last week, services all across the world experienced a major disruption due to Amazon's cloud problem.

Thanks to Gergely Orosz, we can now learn more details about how it happened:

What caused the large AWS outage?

Happy testing! 🙂

Dawid Dylowicz

What impact does AI have on the tester's role? Ryan Craven shares a thought-provoking point of view on how QA evolves from testing to orchestrating.

Similarly, Johan Escobar Garzón suggests we're observing The Rise of the Augmented Tester role.

As a good follow-up read to the articles mentioned above, Arik Aharoni describes where AI is and isn't helping in testing.

And finally, Lana Begunova explores The Uncanny Valley of AI Testers that could help us in the future.

Skipping test management might feel like saving time, but Marina Jordão explains how it may also lead to problems and suggests providing structure in QA.

In relation to that, here's a good discussion — Do We Still Need Test Case Management Tools in 2025?

There's no single truth in testing. Maaike Brinkhof reminds us that good testing is human-driven and powered by curiosity, which is especially important in the AI age.

Furthermore, Daniel Gold reflects on The Emotional Side of Building QA in a Startup.

Sometimes test flakiness isn't caused by tests, but by the system. Gil Zilberfeld advises how to convince others to invest in testability.

Moreover, Jeffrey Bakker shares a story of A Senior Developer who was nearly offended by this take on test automation.

Page Object Model is a popular design pattern used in test automation, but there are more. The testing community shares a few examples in this Reddit thread.

Talking about good practices in test automation, Corina Pip explains which Artifacts to store in your test automation project.

In Agile, tests should be written and executed alongside development. It's often easier said than done, so how to make it work in reality? Here's a good discussion where people share their experiences and propose various approaches.

In yet another great deep-dive, Sławomir Radzymiński explores how AI agents can enhance Test Driven-Development.

Furthermore, Mo Zaman shares some intriguing thoughts on Unlocking AI Productivity: The Case for Test Automation

Testing two-factor authentication flows may not seem like an easy deal, but Filip Hric put together a handy guide to achieve that with Playwright and Mailosaur.

Ismail Sobhy put together a detailed demonstration of using the latest addition to this popular tool — Playwright Agents.

If you struggle to debug your Cypress tests, Mohamed Said Ibrahim shared a helpful guide showing a dozen methods.

Moreover, Jenna Beckett announced that Cy.prompt() Is Now Available to Everyone: Write Cypress Tests in Natural Language.

Don't we all? This is an interesting Reddit thread where people share their thoughts on possible approaches.

I also suggest reading through another discussion about the Playwright MCP farce.

If you write tests using Python, Sharath Chandran put together a thorough overview of Pytest test automation framework.

Interested in knowing how to make the best out of Playwright? Michał Ślęzak shares a step-by-step example of developing tests using best practices.

Also, Irfan Mujagić shows how to implement Database Rollback Strategies in Playwright that can come in handy for clean test setup and teardown.

Practising systems thinking can greatly help testers. So if you want to learn more about it, Mike Harris shared a review of the Thinking in Systems: A Primer book and explains how it helped him.

Wondering how to leverage GitHub Copilot AI agents in test automation? Karthik K.K. shows an example in this 14-minute recording.

π-thon... 😂

Thanks for reading!

If you enjoy this newsletter and find it helpful in becoming a better tester, please consider sharing it with others.

Dawid Dylowicz