Test Reporting for Small Teams: Simple Setup, No DevOps Required

Small teams ship fast. You don’t have dedicated DevOps. You don’t have time to set up and maintain test infrastructure. You just need to see what failed in CI without digging through logs.

The Small Team Testing Reality

You’re probably dealing with some combination of:

Limited CI artifacts - GitHub Actions gives you 90 days, then reports disappear
No central dashboard - Test results scattered across branches and workflow runs
Slack is your command center - That’s where work happens
Nobody has time for infrastructure - You’re writing features, not managing servers

Enterprise test reporting tools want you to set up databases, deploy services, and manage infrastructure. That’s not realistic when you have 3-10 engineers and a hundred things to ship.

What Small Teams Actually Need

Shareable Test Results

When a test fails, you need to share it with the person who can fix it:

Not “go to GitHub, find the workflow, click through three menus, download artifacts”
Just a URL that shows the failure

Slack Integration

You’re already in Slack. Test failures should show up there:

[FAILED] api-tests - main
2 tests failed, 47 passed
View report: https://app.gaffer.sh/reports/abc123

Click the link, see the failure, fix it. No context switching to CI dashboards.

Flaky Test Detection

Small teams can’t afford to waste time re-running “that flaky test.” You need to know which tests are unreliable so you can fix or quarantine them.

Zero Infrastructure

If it requires running a server, maintaining a database, or configuring Kubernetes, it’s not for small teams. You need something that works with a single CI step.

How Gaffer Works for Small Teams

5-Minute Setup

Sign up (free tier available)
Get an API key
Add one step to CI

GitHub Actions:

- name: Upload to Gaffer
  if: always()
  uses: gaffer-sh/gaffer-uploader@v1
  with:
    gaffer_api_key: ${{ secrets.GAFFER_UPLOAD_TOKEN }}
    report_path: ./test-results

That’s it. Test reports are now hosted and shareable.

Connect Slack

Enable Slack notifications and choose which branches trigger alerts. Most teams only want notifications for main - you don’t need noise from every feature branch.

Connect GitHub

Enable commit statuses to see test results directly on PRs. No more “CI passed” that actually means “tests passed” - you see the test count right on the commit.

Track Flaky Tests

Gaffer automatically identifies tests that flip between pass and fail. The analytics page shows:

Which tests are most unreliable
How often they flip
Whether they’re getting better or worse

Pricing That Makes Sense

Small teams don’t have enterprise budgets. Gaffer pricing is flat-rate, not per seat:

Free - 500 MB storage, 7-day retention
Pro - $15/mo, 10 GB storage, 30-day retention
Team - $49/mo, 50 GB storage, 90-day retention

All plans include unlimited users and unlimited projects. One price whether you have 3 engineers or 15.

Real Small Team Workflow

Here’s how it typically works:

Developer pushes code - Tests run in CI
Tests fail - Slack gets a notification with a report link
Developer clicks link - Sees exactly what failed, with screenshots and stack traces
Developer fixes it - Or asks for help by sharing the same link
Tests pass - Commit status turns green

No digging through CI logs. No downloading artifacts. No “can you check the test output?” conversations.

What You Don’t Need

Gaffer skips features that small teams don’t use:

No complex dashboard builder
No ML-powered failure analysis
No role-based access control tiers
No enterprise SSO requirements

Just test reports, sharing, and analytics. The basics, done well.

Try It

Start with the free tier. One project, 7-day retention. Enough to see if it fits your workflow before paying anything.

Start Free

Gaffer