[SUREFIRE-2088] Split test into chunks and select chunk to run

• Type: New Feature
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Component/s: Maven Surefire Plugin
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Liam Sharp
• Created: 20/May/22 21:11
• Updated: 20/May/22 21:11

Description

A lot of CI environments (GitHub Actions/Circle CI etc) charge by the minute. So running tests across multiple boxes costs very little more than 1 box, but gives results back much quicker. 

I've love to be able to do some thing like:

mvn tests -Dsurefire.chunks=10 -Dsurefire.chunk=1

Which I could run on box 1 of 10, then 

mvn tests -Dsurefire.chunks=10 -Dsurefire.chunk=2

on box 2, etc etc.

I've seen solutions that involved code outside of maven looking at JUnit test results and producing a files to pass in -Dsurefire.excludesFile on each of the boxes. This solution requires state from previous runs and code outside of surefire. I think being able to do this completely in the surefire plugin would be a great enhancement. User could provide the chunks/chunk values, and then optionally (as a plus plus feature) some test results that give timings to allow more even test distribution across the chunks.