SmartBear adds Sources and Workflows to BearQ QA system

Sources broadens BearQ’s view beyond the application under test. Requirements and bug reports flow into BearQ from Atlassian Corp.’s Jira, while SmartBear’s Reflect and Zephyr testing tools show what existing tests already cover. BearQ uses that context to identify coverage gaps before it writes new tests, which SmartBear says results in fewer duplicate tests.

Workflows lets teams chain jobs behind a single trigger. When a build reaches the continuous integration and delivery pipeline, for example, BearQ can create a test environment and run regression tests against it. Results from the run return to the team’s connected systems. Teams that do not want testing tied to builds can place the same sequence on a schedule, and they decide how much of a workflow runs without human review.

SmartBear calls that arrangement progressive autonomy. Teams begin with people approving what BearQ does and hand over more of the process as confidence grows. Trust was the top barrier to adopting or scaling autonomous testing, named by 23% of 1,436 U.S. and U.K. respondents in a survey SmartBear released on 30 September.

Bridges Smith, vice president of product management for AI at SmartBear, called autonomous testing “the first step.” Smith said the larger opportunity is connecting how an application actually behaves with what a team intends it to do and the test suite it has built. People would still set the guardrails, Smith said, describing the shift as a move “beyond autonomous testing toward autonomous quality.”

BearQ first appeared in March, when SmartBear opened early access for web applications built by midmarket software-as-a-service providers. A September update made it an assignable agent inside Jira. SmartBear’s older lineup includes Swagger tools for designing application programming interfaces, and about 32,000 organizations use its software, by the company’s count.

More Sources connections are due before the quarter ends. SmartBear said both features will get a public demonstration on Thursday in a livestream with Andy Weir, author of “Project Hail Mary.”

Editor's Summary

SmartBear has expanded BearQ with Sources for coverage-gap detection and Workflows for automated test sequences. The company is positioning the release as a step from autonomous testing toward autonomous quality, while giving teams control over how much runs without human review. BearQ’s latest additions draw on Jira, Reflect and Zephyr data, and more Sources connections are due this quarter.