How to Share pytest Results with Your Team

pytest runs your tests. pytest-html gives you a nice report. Then someone asks “what failed in CI?” and you’re walking them through downloading artifacts from GitHub Actions. There’s no built-in way to share pytest results with your team.

pytest outputs results to the terminal or generates files (HTML, JUnit XML). Either way, those results are stuck wherever the tests ran — your machine or a CI runner. Getting them to your team means:

Common (Bad) Solutions

1. CI artifacts

GitHub Actions keeps artifacts 90 days max, GitLab even shorter by default
“Go to the workflow run, click artifacts, download, unzip, open in browser”
QA might not have CI access at all

2. Paste terminal output in Slack

Loses formatting, hard to parse
Can’t reference later
Doesn’t scale past a handful of tests

3. Email the HTML report

Recipient downloads, opens locally
Version confusion across multiple runs
Feels like 2005

4. Upload to S3 manually

Works, but it’s a manual step that gets skipped
Someone has to manage the bucket and permissions

Better: Hosted pytest Reports with Shareable Links

Upload pytest results after every CI run. Every test run gets a permanent URL your team can open directly.

What This Looks Like

CI runs pytest
Results upload automatically
You get a URL like https://app.gaffer.sh/reports/abc123
Share in Slack, GitHub PRs, Jira — anywhere
Anyone with access sees the full report

No downloads. No manual steps. No expiring artifacts.

Step 1: Generate Reports

Pick your output format — or use multiple:

# HTML for humans
pip install pytest-html
pytest --html=report.html --self-contained-html

# CTRF for richest analytics
pip install pytest-ctrf
pytest --ctrf=ctrf-report.json

# Or both
pytest --html=report.html --self-contained-html --ctrf=ctrf-report.json

Step 2: Add the Upload Step to CI

GitHub Actions:

- name: Run tests
  run: pytest --html=report.html --self-contained-html --ctrf=ctrf-report.json

- name: Upload to Gaffer
  if: always()
  uses: gaffer-sh/gaffer-uploader@v1
  with:
    gaffer_api_key: ${{ secrets.GAFFER_UPLOAD_TOKEN }}
    report_path: |
      ./report.html
      ./ctrf-report.json
    commit_sha: ${{ github.sha }}
    branch: ${{ github.ref_name }}

GitLab CI:

test:
  image: python:3.11
  script:
    - pip install -r requirements.txt
    - pip install pytest pytest-html pytest-ctrf
    - pytest --html=report.html --self-contained-html --ctrf=ctrf-report.json
  after_script:
    - |
      curl -X POST https://app.gaffer.sh/api/upload \
        -H "X-API-Key: $GAFFER_UPLOAD_TOKEN" \
        -F "[email protected]" \
        -F "[email protected]" \
        -F 'tags={"commitSha":"'"$CI_COMMIT_SHA"'","branch":"'"$CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME"'"}'

After upload, share the URL in Slack, add it to a GitHub PR comment, or attach it to a Jira ticket. Recipients see the full report in their browser — no downloads.

Slack and Webhook Notifications

Stop checking CI manually. Get notified when pytest finishes:

Slack integration:

[FAILED] api-tests - main
2 tests failed, 89 passed
View: https://app.gaffer.sh/reports/xyz789

Direct link to the full report
Filter by branch — only notify on main, skip feature branches

Webhooks:

Send results to any endpoint
Integrate with your existing alerting tools
Trigger custom actions on failure

No more “did the tests pass?” back-and-forth.

GitHub Integration

Commit statuses show test results directly on PRs. Your team sees pass/fail without clicking through to CI logs.

What About Flaky Tests?

Python tests can be flaky for many reasons — database state, network calls, timing issues, fixture leaks. Gaffer tracks test results across runs and identifies tests that flip between pass and fail over time. You get a list of unreliable tests to fix or quarantine, instead of investigating the same “random failure” repeatedly.

Get Started

Gaffer’s free tier includes 500 MB of storage with 7-day retention. Paid plans offer extended retention up to 90 days.

Start Sharing pytest Reports - Free

Gaffer