Building a database of flaky autopkgtests

[Adrien Nader]

Hi,

This is something I discussed in Madrid and some people were interested.

Basically, I'd like to build a database of tests that are not reliable.
I think there is value in knowing which tests are flaky. What will be
done or can be done with this knowledge is uncertain and will certainly
depend on the results. I don't think it's wise to think too much about
the subsequent steps for now.

I've spent countless hours on the APIs; they're pretty simple.

# IRC
Mention "flakydb" on #ubuntu-devel, #ubuntu-release or send me a private
message, mention the package name, and write the rest free-form.

# E-mail
Send me an e-mail with "flakydb" in the subject, mention the package
name, and write the rest free-form.

# Carrier pigepn
similar to e-mail but it won't be available until the eggs have hatched.

That's it. I'll do the post-processing.

It's entirely optional and more importantly, you can spam me while
you're investigating something.
If you think a test is flaky, don't wait, send a message, and if later
on you find out it isn't, fine, just send another message. I will deal
with everything. Same if you don't have all the details or really, any
reason. I will handle everything else.
The reason it's important to message early is because when investigating
a test that turns out to be flaky, a retry is likely to make the test
disappear from our radars by definition.

Happy spamming,

-- 
Adrien