Test notifications via Slack

Test Notifications notifies developers when their test sessions finish so they can immediately take action on the results.

The Launchable Slack app notifies developers when their test sessions finish so they can immediately take action on the results, whether that's triaging failures or merging a PR. Developers can create subscriptions to receive personal notifications about test sessions run against their branches/pull requests or other test sessions they care about.

Getting started

To set up notifications:

  1. Start sending data to Launchable

  2. Install the Launchable Slack app in your Slack workspace

  3. Link your Launchable account and your Slack account

  4. Create your first notification subscription in Slack

Sending data to Launchable

See Sending data to Launchable.

Installing the Launchable Slack app

  1. Log into the Launchable dashboard.

  2. Go to Test Notifications.

  3. Click the Install Slack App button in the Slack app section. Only for beta program participants.
    This will open the Slack app authorization flow. You may need to log in to Slack at this stage.

  4. Authorize the app to install it.

  5. Done! 🎉

Linking your Launchable and Slack accounts

Once the Launchable Slack app has been installed, you and your teammates can link your Launchable and Slack accounts. This lets you set up subscriptions via the app.

If you haven't signed up for Launchable yet, or if you're not a member of your team's Launchable organization yet, ask a teammate to send you an #Organization invitation link so you can sign up (if needed) and join.

You communicate with the app through direct messages:

  1. In Slack, click the New message icon in the top section of the left navigation (or use the Command+N or Control+N keyboard shortcut) to compose a new message.

  2. In the "To:" field, type Launchable and select the app from the dropdown list.

  3. In the message text field, type /launchable link and hit Enter.

  4. Click the button in the response message to initiate the flow to connect your Launchable account to your Slack account.

Creating a notification subscription

After you've linked your Launchable and Slack accounts, you can create your first notification subscription.

Just like when you linked your account, you'll create a subscription by sending a message to the Launchable app. The syntax for creating a subscription is:

/launchable subscribe <WORKSPACE> <KEY>=<VALUE>
  • <WORKSPACE> is the name of the workspace containing the test sessions you want to be notified about.

  • <KEY>=<VALUE> is a key-value pair that contains the CI environment variable and value that indicates test sessions you want to subscribe to (e.g. GITHUB_ACTOR=octocat). More on this below ⤵

Common key-value pairs for subscriptions

Typically, you'll want to be notified about your test runs. Each CI system has its own environment variable that indicates the user that kicked off a build or pipeline.

For example, GitHub Actions has an environment variable called GITHUB_ACTOR. So if you use GitHub Actions, you can subscribe to your test runs using a command such as:

/launchable subscribe <YOUR_LAUNCHABLE_WORKSPACE> GITHUB_ACTOR=<YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME>

The tabbed section below describes how to compose /launchable subscribe for major CI tools:

Azure DevOps
CircleCI
GitHub Actions
GitLab CI
Jenkins
Environment variable BUILD_REQUESTEDFOREMAIL
Description The person who pushed or checked in the changes.

Example:

/launchable subscribe <YOUR_LAUNCHABLE_WORKSPACE> Build.RequestedForEmail=<YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS>

Other key-value pairs

Since the subscription mechanism is based on CI environment variables, you have a lot of flexibility when it comes to subscriptions. CI tools expose lots of environment variables (and you can add your own) that you can pass into /launchable subscribe to create your own custom subscriptions. For more info, check out your CI tool's documentation.

Receiving notifications

Once you've set up a subscription, the Launchable app will send you a personal message each time a new test session matching the subscription criteria is recorded:

Passing notification Failing notification
Passing notification Failing notification

Failing notifications include a link to view test results in Launchable along with a quick summary of failing tests. This helps you get started triaging without checking your email over and over!