Go

A guide for generating Trunk-compatible test reports for Go tests

You can automatically detect and manage flaky tests in your Go projects by integrating with Trunk. This document explains how to configure Go to output JUnit XML reports that can be uploaded to Trunk for analysis.

Why an Extra Step for `go test`?

The standard Go test runner, go test, is excellent for executing tests and providing immediate feedback to developers. However, it does not natively produce test reports in the JUnit XML format that Trunk Flaky Tests requires for ingestion and analysis. Therefore, an additional tool is needed to convert the output of go test into this compatible format. This intermediate step ensures that Trunk can accurately process your test results and identify flaky tests.

Checklist

By the end of this guide, you should achieve the following before proceeding to the next steps to configure your CI provider.

Generate a compatible test report (JUnit XML).
Configure the report file path or glob
Disable retries for better detection accuracy
Test uploads locally

After correctly generating reports following the above steps, you'll be ready to move on to the next steps to configure uploads in CI.

Generating JUnit XML Reports from Go Tests

Before integrating with Trunk, you need to generate a Trunk-compatible report. For Go, go test does not output JUnit XML by default, so you must use a tool to format it.

Update your existing go test usage to generate json and use go-junit-report to convert your standard Go testing output into JUnit XML.

go install github.com/jstemmer/go-junit-report/v2@latest

Then pipe go test into the go-junit-report:

go test -json 2>&1 | go-junit-report -parser gojson -out junit_report.xml

Install gotestsum into your project: go install gotest.tools/gotestsum@latest Call gotestsum to both execute your tests and generate the junit.xml file

gotestsum [path-to-tests-to-run] --junitfile ./junit.xml

Since go test doesn't directly output JUnit XML, you'll use a tool to convert its output. Here are two common options:

Option 1: Using `gotestsum`

What it is: gotestsum is a Go test runner that wraps go test. It executes your tests (using go test -json for more structured input) and can format the results into JUnit XML, alongside other human-readable formats and test run summaries.
Why choose this approach: You might prefer gotestsum if you favor using a single command that serves as a wrapper to both execute your Go tests (by calling go test internally) and directly generate the JUnit XML report required for flaky test analysis.
Installation: Download from releases or install via go install:

go install gotest.tools/gotestsum@latest

Usage:

gotestsum --junitfile ./junit-gotestsum.xml -- ./...
# The '-- ./...' passes arguments directly to 'go test'.
# Adjust './...' to target your specific packages if needed.

Option 2: Using `go-junit-report`

What it is: go-junit-report is a tool that converts the output of a standard go test command into JUnit XML. This is achieved by running go test and then piping its output to go-junit-report as a separate step.
Why choose this approach: You might prefer go-junit-report if you want to keep your go test command distinct and add a separate, explicit step for converting its output to JUnit XML, often suitable for a minimal setup focused purely on this conversion.
Installation:

go install github.com/jstemmer/go-junit-report/v2@latest

Usage: For reliable report generation, use go test -json and pipe its output. The -parser gojson flag tells go-junit-report to expect this JSON stream:

go test -json ./... 2>&1 | go-junit-report -parser gojson -out report-go-junit.xml
# Adjust './...' to target your specific packages.
# 2>&1 ensures stderr (where build errors can appear) is also piped.

Report File Path

The tools will write a JUnit test report to the file specified (e.g., junit-gotestsum.xml or report-go-junit.xml). You'll need this path when configuring uploads to Trunk.

Disable Retries

Regardless of the tool chosen, you need to disable automatic retries if you previously enabled them. Retries compromise the accurate detection of flaky tests. If you're using a package like retry, disable it to get more accurate results from Trunk.

Try It Locally

You can validate your test reports using the Trunk CLI. If you don't have it installed already, you can install and run the validate command like this:

curl -fsSLO --retry 3 https://trunk.io/releases/trunk && chmod +x trunk
./trunk flakytests validate --junit-paths "./junit.xml"

This will not upload anything to Trunk. To improve detection accuracy, you should address all errors and warnings before proceeding to the next steps.

Test Upload

Before modifying your CI jobs to automatically upload test results to Trunk, try uploading a single test run manually.

You make an upload to Trunk using the following command:

curl -fsSLO --retry 3 https://trunk.io/releases/trunk && chmod +x trunk
./trunk flakytests upload --junit-paths "./junit.xml" \
    --org-url-slug <TRUNK_ORG_SLUG> \
    --token <TRUNK_ORG_TOKEN>

You can find your Trunk organization slug and token in the settings or by following these instructions. After your upload, you can verify that Trunk has received and processed it successfully in the Uploads tab. Warnings will be displayed if the report has issues.