Flaky Test Normalization

Kind: anti-pattern

Layer: Enforcement Core

Record: architecture:flaky-test-normalization

Severity: discouraged

Scope: semantic_consistency, correctness_verification

Formed by: Accept intermittent test failures as normal and rerun until green instead of fixing nondeterminism or isolation defects.

Canonical: Ontology

A defect in which intermittent test failures are accepted and rerun until they pass.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Mock Mirage and before Prompt Sprawl.

Refactored by

• Isolate Test State
• Inject Clock and Randomness
• Fix the Race
• Fake at the Boundary

Severity

• discouraged

Category

• Anti-patterns

Force

• Correctness verification
• Semantic consistency

Negated by

• Reproducibility

Linked from

• The gate holds the line
• A report, not a checkbox
• Scale follows determinism
• Anti-patterns
• Correctness / Determinism / Verification
• Correctness / Determinism / Verification
• Transactions / State / Concurrency
• Failure shapes
• Severity levels
• The forces