Test Observability
CTRF
Also known as: Common Test Report Format
CTRF (Common Test Report Format) is a JSON schema for test results that treats retries, flakiness and per-attempt history as first-class fields rather than improvised conventions.
CTRF exists to fix what JUnit XML cannot express. A report carries a required results object holding tool, summary and tests, and each test may record a retries count, a retryAttempts array describing every earlier attempt, and a flaky boolean the spec defines precisely — a test is flaky only if its final status is passed and it failed at least once before passing.
It also normalises without destroying: statuses collapse to five values, but an optional rawStatus preserves whatever the producing tool originally reported, so outcomes like timeout or aborted remain recoverable. The trade-off against JUnit XML is reach — CI systems do not read CTRF natively, so it usually rides alongside a JUnit file rather than replacing one.
- Requires three top-level fields: results, reportFormat and specVersion.
- Status enum has exactly five values: passed, failed, skipped, pending, other.
- Retries, retryAttempts and flaky are modelled fields, not property conventions.
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Last reviewed September 9, 2026