Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🤪 Unreliable behavior 🥐 Crispy layers 💻 Unstable results
flakiness

flakiness

7.9
Unreliable tests or software that sometimes fail for no clear reason
  • noun
  • /ˈfleɪkɪnəs/
  • Specialized
translation icon : intermitencia
  • To fix deployment problems, the team tracked down and removed flakiness in integration tests.

Examples

  • The flakiness of the software caused many delays.

  • Developers blamed the test flakiness for delaying the release deadline.

  • The CI suite shows flakiness in its tests, making builds unreliable.

  • We need to address the flakiness in our testing procedures.

  • The flakiness of the software made it difficult to rely on for important tasks.

  • Developers often struggle with the flakiness of their testing environments, which can lead to unexpected failures.

  • We need to address the flakiness in our system to ensure consistent performance.

Synonyms

erraticism
vsflakiness
8.4

Unpredictable and inconsistent behavior

is about intermittent failures that produce nondeterministic results
unreliableness
vsflakiness
7.4

Not able to be trusted to work or be right

refers specifically to intermittent test failures causing unpredictability
unstableness
vsflakiness
7.0

A state in which things are not firm or steady

focuses on occasional failing events rather than broad structural problems

How Stable

reliability
60 3.5
stability
363 3.1
flakiness
  • Specialized
7.9
instability
114 5.1

Surface Forms

flakiness singular
flakinesses plural

Morphology

flakiness = flaky (semi-transparent) = flake + y + ness

The formation flaky -> flakiness is regular; '-ness' creates the noun expressing the state of being flaky.

Etymology

Flakiness comes from flake, a small thing that easily falls off. In computing, tests that fail sometimes and without a clear reason are like flakes that fall away at random, so flakiness means those unpredictable, unreliable test failures.