Using Go with Trunk Flaky Tests

You can automatically detect and manage flaky tests in your Go projects by integrating with Trunk. This document explains how to configure Go to output JUnit XML reports that can be uploaded to Trunk for analysis.

Why an Extra Step for `go test`?

The standard Go test runner, go test, is excellent for executing tests and providing immediate feedback to developers. However, it does not natively produce test reports in the JUnit XML format that Trunk Flaky Tests requires for ingestion and analysis. Therefore, an additional tool is needed to convert the output of go test into this compatible format. This intermediate step allows Trunk to accurately process your test results and identify flaky tests.

Setup steps

Work through the steps below in order. Once you’ve finished the last one, you’ll be ready to move on to configure uploads in CI.

Generate a compatible test report (JUnit XML)

Configure the report file path or glob

Disable retries for better detection accuracy

Test uploads locally

Generating JUnit XML Reports from Go Tests

Before integrating with Trunk, you need to generate a Trunk-compatible report. For Go, go test does not output JUnit XML by default, so you must use a tool to format it.

go test + go-junit-report
gotestsum

Update your existing go test usage to generate json and use go-junit-report to convert your standard Go testing output into JUnit XML.

go install github.com/jstemmer/go-junit-report/v2@latest

Then pipe go test into the go-junit-report:

go test -json 2>&1 | go-junit-report -parser gojson -out junit_report.xml

Install gotestsum into your project:

go install gotest.tools/gotestsum@latest

Call gotestsum to both execute your tests and generate the junit.xml file

gotestsum [path-to-tests-to-run] --junitfile ./junit.xml

Report File Path

The tools will write a JUnit test report to the file specified (e.g., junit.xml or junit_report.xml). You’ll need this path when configuring uploads to Trunk.

Disable Retries

Regardless of the tool chosen, you need to disable automatic retries if you previously enabled them. Retries compromise the accurate detection of flaky tests.

If you’re using a package like retry, disable it to get more accurate results from Trunk.

Try It Locally

SKU="trunk-analytics-cli-x86_64-unknown-linux.tar.gz"
curl -fL --retry 3 \
  "https://github.com/trunk-io/analytics-cli/releases/latest/download/${SKU}" \
  | tar -xz

chmod +x trunk-analytics-cli
./trunk-analytics-cli validate --junit-paths "./junit.xml"

Test Upload

Before modifying your CI jobs to automatically upload test results to Trunk, try uploading a single test run manually. You make an upload to Trunk using the following command:

./trunk-analytics-cli upload --junit-paths "./junit.xml" \
    --org-url-slug <TRUNK_ORG_URL_SLUG> \
    --token <TRUNK_ORG_TOKEN>

You can find your Trunk organization slug and token in the settings or by following these instructions. After your upload, you can verify that Trunk has received and processed it successfully in the Uploads tab. Warnings will be displayed if the report has issues.