Record trace screenshots only when someone reads them
Keep snapshot traces on every run, save the full trace for evidence runs, and save the snapshot trace for any red test.
How DoorDash used this technique
Read what DoorDash changed and follow the original sources.
Record trace screenshots only when someone reads them
Every journey recorded a full trace with screenshots and DOM snapshots and saved it. The PR records screenshots on evidence runs, keeps snapshots on every run, and saves the trace zip on evidence runs and on failing tests.
- Use it when
- Passing end-to-end tests spend time recording or uploading traces, videos or screenshots nobody opens.
- Before applying it
- Teardown runs before the test runner records an in-flight error, so check that assertion, timeout and teardown errors each still save a usable trace.
Company Playbooks
- Read Anthropic’s playbookRun only affected tests
- Read DoorDash’s playbookRun build and test in parallel, sharded across CI agents
- Read Linear’s playbookBenchmark the same job on faster hardware
- Read Mastra’s playbookStarSling runners for the slowest test workflow
- Read OpenAI’s playbookRank CI fixes by the minutes they save
- Read Ramp’s playbookMove a CPU-bound test suite to a faster CPU
- Read Shopify’s playbookLet an agent iterate against one CI metric
- Read Spotify’s playbookBuild arm64 on native arm64 runners
- Read Stripe’s playbookRun only the tests a change can reach
- Read Uber’s playbookBuild the merge-queue speculations most likely to be needed