Issue #200 : Software Testing Notes
200th Issue 🎉🥳
Hello there! 👋
Welcome to the 200th edition of Software Testing Notes, a weekly newsletter featuring must-read content on Software Testing. I hope this week has been good for you so far.
This issue marks a quiet but meaningful milestone 🎉🥳. Thank you for reading, sharing, and sending thoughtful feedback along the way.
Your support is the reason this newsletter still exists and still matters. Now without further ado, lets dive into this week’s curated links, let me know what your favorite is!
What Test Engineers Forgot By Saying “Out Of The Box”?
Beyond the Page Object Model: Designing Scalable Automation for 2026
When Playwright Helps And When It Actively Hides Bugs
Week 4 SQL Injection Audit Challenge
Common mistakes in REST API Testing with Rest Assured
and much more…
📚 Testing
Prompt Engineering for Testers — Writing Prompts as Test Artifacts By Gunashekar R
Nowadays in AI-driven testing, prompts have quietly become first-class test artifacts, carrying the same weight as test cases, assertions, and contracts. Gunashekar R walks us through why we as a testers need prompt-engineering skills, how “test-grade” prompts are structured and versioned, and more.
QA Keeps Testing Rules Nobody Can Explain By George Ukkuru
When was the last time you questioned why are we requiring users to type their passwords twice? George Ukkuru gently dismantles the assumption that it’s about security and explores a broader testing mindset shift, moving from enforcing inherited rules to regularly questioning whether they still earn their place in modern systems.
Bugs Made Me Believe in TDD: Here’s How By Patrick Müller
Patrick Müller shares a reflective journey from sidelining tests to fully embracing TDD and explains how TDD actually works in practice and why writing tests first improves product design and confidence over time.
What Test Engineers Forgot By Saying “Out Of The Box”? By Ravisuriya Eswara
Read Ravisuriya Eswara’s take on how midst of the buzzwords testers often skip the harder, more valuable work of deeply understanding what’s actually inside the system they’re testing.
Improve quality by learning from your process data – a review of “Twenty Things You Need to Know” by Donald J. Wheeler By Mike Harris
Mike Harris connects the theory of Donald Wheeler’s “Twenty Things You Need to Know” to a practical software example, showing how understanding variation can reveal hidden causes behind quality issues.
🔍 Software Testing
⚙️ Automation
Beyond the Page Object Model: Designing Scalable Automation for 2026
If not POM then what else? and why? Richa shares a alternative approach by using component-based testing and app-level actions. With practical example, article shows how tests can better mirror real user workflows while staying maintainable as applications evolve.
When Playwright Helps And When It Actively Hides Bugs By Sourojit Das
Very important take on overreliance on browser automation tools. With practical example, Sourojit Das explains why it’s essential to thoroughly test backend logic and business rules first, then use Playwright as a final check to validate user-facing flows.
Automating Push Notification Testing with Appium By Irfan Mujagić
Irfan Mujagić shares a practical, end-to-end tutorial on how to test push notification with Appium, highlights common pitfalls, and shares repeatable pattern you can reuse for real-world notification testing with Appium.
AI and Testing: LangChain Templates By Jeff Nyman
Jeff Nyman continues a hands-on tour of LangChain by easing into prompt templates, showing how simple prompt evolve into reusable, role-aware conversations that can be composed, tested, and eventually chained together.
Common mistakes in REST API Testing with Rest Assured
This article share few common mistakes when designing api test automation with Rest Assured framework and shares how to approach thorough api testing by adding assertions on response content and schema, reusable client configurations, coverage of edge cases.
Custom JUnit 5 Extensions for Testing By Elias Nogueira
Elias Nogueira details how JUnit 5 custom extensions can help you hook into the test lifecycle to handle setup, retries, or infrastructure checks outside the test logic.
Extending My Agentic SDLC Demo: Adding Vibium Test Support Alongside Playwright by Beth Marshall
Beth Marshall is running an exciting experiment running Playwright and the newer Vibium side by side in the same codebase.
Why Appium Tests Pass Locally But Fail in CI By Om Narayan
Om Narayan digs into why Appium tests so often behave perfectly on your machine and then fall apart in CI, walking through seven concrete environment differences that quietly change timing, state, and behaviour.
🔍 Test Automation
💨 Performance
Volume Testing: Simple, Useful, and Too Often Forgotten By Mykola Korkoza
Mykola Korkoza shares a practical walkthrough of how to plan, run, and interpret volume tests.
🔍 Performance Testing
🔒 Security
Week 4 SQL Injection Audit Challenge
This is a hands-on deep dive into spotting SQL injection risks through code review alone, using 66 exercises that sharpen your security testing.
🔍 Security Testing
🛠️ Resources & Tools
Android Use — Open-source library for AI agents to control native Android apps
awesome-claude-skills — A curated list of awesome Claude Skills, resources, and tools for customizing Claude AI workflows — particularly Claude Code
📝 List of Software Testers
Do you create content around Software Testing ? Submit yours blog details here and I will add it to the list.
🎁 Bonus Content
📌 OTHER INTERESTING STUFF
⭐ LAST WEEK’S MOST READ
AI Testing Skills: The Evolution Beyond RAG and MCP by Slawomir Radzyminski
Building a Scalable Automation Framework with Playwright + TypeScript by Rajesh Yemul
😂 And Finally,
How different people reacts to "Bug" 🤣
📨 Send Me Your Articles, Tutorials, Tools!
Wrote something? Send links via Direct Message on Twitter @thetestingkit (details here). If you have any suggestions for improvement or corrections, feel free to reply to this email.
Thanks to everyone for subscribing and reading!
Happy Testing!
Pritesh(@priteshusdadiya)