Skip to content
OttoTester docs

Test Authoring Templates

What a template is

Section titled “What a template is”

A Test Authoring Template is a saved run configuration. It’s the starting point for testing in OttoTester — you pick a template, point it at a variant, and run it.

The template tells the agent pipeline what to do: which phases to run, how many test cases to aim for, which categories of test to cover, and how to execute. Save it once, reuse it every run. Templates belong to an application, and one is marked the default.

Agent Prompt

Section titled “Agent Prompt”

The most important field is optional: the Agent Prompt.

OttoTester explores your app on its own. The Agent Prompt is how you steer it. It’s a free-text box — plain instructions for the agents, in your own words:

  • “The save button takes 2–3 seconds — wait for the toast.”
  • “Focus on the checkout flow.”
  • “The date fields use a custom picker, not a native input.”

Leave it empty and OttoTester tests what it finds. Fill it in and the agents weight their work toward what you said. You’re never writing a script — you’re giving the agents context and direction.

Picking proposed tests to write

Section titled “Picking proposed tests to write”

If your application has proposed tests, the template lists them under the Agent Prompt, each with a checkbox. Select the ones you want and each becomes its own test, linked back to the proposed test it came from — so its “tests created” count is exact.

Picked tests are created exactly as selected; they don’t go through the planner’s wording, so the link can’t get lost. The Agent Prompt box is then only for extra tests beyond the ones you selected — leave it empty to create only your picks, or describe more tests to have OttoTester add them on top.

Creating tests and resuming them

Section titled “Creating tests and resuming them”

A template runs in one of two ways:

  • Create tests — the normal way. The planner explores the app, picks new test cases, and the pipeline generates and runs them.
  • Resume incomplete work — picks up test cases that earlier runs left unfinished (still planned, blocked, or scripted with a failing script) and processes them in batches. Use it to chip away at a backlog without re-planning from scratch. Start it with Resume Tests on the Tests page’s Active tab; its Max test cases sets how many tests one run takes. A test whose script passed before and then failed is run again first, since the app may have been down when it failed. It is rewritten only if it fails again.

What else a template sets

Section titled “What else a template sets”

Beyond the Agent Prompt and mode, a template bundles:

  • Phases — which pipeline steps run. When creating tests, plan is always on; generate, execute, and heal are toggles. Resuming skips planning entirely.
  • Test categories — what kind of testing to cover. Search is the supported category today; create/edit/delete testing is coming but locked for now, since those actions can change your app’s data.
  • Max test cases — how many to aim for in one run.
  • Automatically plan prerequisite tests — on a Create Tests template, selected by default. Some tests need another test to run first, like “Create an employee” before “Terminate an employee”. With this selected, OttoTester plans those prerequisite tests and runs them first, and the planner gets twice the steps to do it. Prerequisite tests don’t count toward Max test cases. Clear it to have each test set up its own data, with the usual number of planner steps. Tests linked to prerequisite tests by an earlier run still run in order either way. Resume templates don’t have it, since Resume doesn’t plan.
  • Feature status — tells the healer how aggressively to repair. Existing feature → repair brittle tests aggressively. New or changing feature → stay conservative, because a failure might be a real behavior change.
  • Time limits — Time limit per test, the longest one test may run (3 minutes unless you change it); Wait for each check, how long a test waits for the page to show what a check expects; and Time limit per browser action, the longest one action may take while OttoTester plans or writes tests (2 minutes, never more than the time limit per test). If one action takes longer, the run stops and the run page says which setting to raise.
  • Execution settings — headed vs headless, screenshots, trace capture, log verbosity, and whether to use test data.
Section titled “Related”