Test Automation allows teams to remove the slow and manual testing cycles related to software development. Test Automation can include such things as:

• Static code analysis
• Linting
• Unit tests
• End-to-end tests
• Configurations and policy checks
• Security tests (dependencies, vulnerabilities, and pen tests)

• Improved quality: Applying patterns like Test-Driven Development or Behavior-Driven Development drives up shared understanding Increase code quality.
• Deliver reliably at speed: As features are produced, you can confidently release without a large manual registration each time.
• Fewer bottlenecks: Without automated tests, queues form in front of testers.
• Faster feedback: Identifying earlier any potential failure before promote changes into production environments.
• Standardise approach to testing: Defining a way of working where testing is another goal and benefit for the product team.

These tests are steps of the Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery pipeline, such other main steps of the software delivery life cycle.

Easy and quick tests can be executed right after building (compiling) an application or when code is pushed or merged in source control. End-to-End and Security tests usually are executed one the software is deployed in some non-production environment.

Many of these tests can be run in parallel, decreasing the overall time taken to run a collection of tests.

Tools such as Tekton, Jenkins or TravisCI could be used to execute these tests.

Publishing and visualizing the execution reports of the test is another key aspect of the Test Automation, as these reports provide a rapid visualization about the status of the quality, and results of all these steps along the life cycle of the software.

Tools such as SonarQube, OWASP ZAP provide test reporting dashboards.