Pass-on-Retry Monitor

Detect tests that fail then pass on retry within the same commit

The pass-on-retry monitor detects the most common flakiness pattern: a test fails, is retried, and passes on the same commit. This indicates the failure wasn’t caused by a code change and that the test is unreliable.

This monitor is branch-agnostic. It evaluates all test runs regardless of which branch they ran on.

How It Works

The monitor continuously scans your test runs looking for commits where a test has both a failure and a success. When it finds one, the test is flagged as flaky.

Once flagged, the test remains flaky until no pass-on-retry behavior has been observed for a configurable recovery period. This prevents tests from bouncing between flaky and healthy if they only fail intermittently.

Example

Your CI retries failed tests automatically. On commit abc123:

1. test_login fails on the first attempt
2. test_login passes on retry

The monitor detects that test_login had both a failure and success on the same commit and flags it as flaky.

Seven days later (assuming default settings), if test_login hasn’t exhibited any more retry behavior, the monitor resolves and the test returns to healthy.

Configuration

Setting	Description	Default
Enabled	Whether the monitor is active	On
Recovery days	Days without pass-on-retry behavior before a test is resolved as healthy. Range: 1 to 15 days.	7

What Recovery Days Controls

A shorter recovery period (e.g., 1 to 3 days) returns tests to healthy quickly, which is useful if you fix flaky tests promptly and want fast feedback. A longer recovery period (e.g., 10 to 15 days) is more conservative. It keeps tests flagged longer to account for flaky behavior that only surfaces occasionally.

When Detection Happens

Pass-on-retry detection runs continuously as new test results arrive. A failure and its corresponding retry don’t need to arrive at exactly the same time.

Resolution is evaluated daily. If a test hasn’t shown pass-on-retry behavior within the recovery window, it resolves on the next daily check.

Muting

You can temporarily mute the pass-on-retry monitor for a specific test case. See Muting monitors for details.

Edge Cases

Failure without a retry yet: If a test fails but hasn’t been retried, no detection occurs. If the retry arrives later (even hours or days later on the same commit), the monitor will pick it up.

Multiple retries on one commit: If a test fails and is retried several times on the same commit, the monitor treats it as a single detection for that commit.