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title Continuous Integration
description Since `pestphp/pest` is included in your Composer development dependencies, you may run your test suite within the deployment pipeline of the CI platform of your choice.

Continuous Integration

Up until now, we have only discussed running tests from the command line on your local machine. However, you may also run your tests from a CI platform of your choice. Since pestphp/pest is included in your Composer development dependencies, you may execute the ./vendor/bin/pest --ci command within your CI platform's deployment pipeline.

Example With GitHub Actions

If your application uses GitHub Actions as its CI platform, the following guidelines will help you configure Pest so that your application is automatically tested whenever someone pushes a commit to your GitHub repository.

To get started, create a tests.yml file within the your-project/.github/workflows directory. The file should have the following contents:

name: Tests

on: ['push', 'pull_request']

jobs:
  ci:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Setup PHP
        uses: shivammathur/setup-php@v2
        with:
          php-version: 8.4
          tools: composer:v2
          coverage: xdebug

      - name: Install Dependencies
        run: composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist --optimize-autoloader

      - name: Tests
        run: ./vendor/bin/pest --ci

Of course, you may customize the script above according to your requirements. For example, you may need to set up a database if your tests require one.

Once you have created your tests.yml file, commit and push the tests.yml file so GitHub Actions can run your tests. Keep in mind that once you make this commit, your test suite will execute on all new pull requests and commits.

Using Browser Testing with GitHub Actions

Sometimes you may wish to use Browser Testing with GitHub Actions. To do so, be sure to add a step that installs Playwright before running your tests. Here is an example:

    - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
      with:
        node-version: lts/*

    - name: Install dependencies
      run: npm ci

    - name: Install Playwright Browsers
      run: npx playwright install --with-deps

    - name: Run Browser Tests
      run: ./vendor/bin/pest --ci --parallel

Note: Be sure to run your browser tests in parallel to speed up execution time. You may do this by adding the --parallel flag to the Pest command.

Example With GitLab CI/CD Pipelines

If your application uses GitLab CI/CD Pipelines as its CI platform, the following guidelines will help you configure Pest so that your application is automatically tested whenever someone pushes a commit to your GitLab repository.

To get started, add the following configuration to your .gitlab-ci.yml file. The file should have the following contents:

stages:
  - build
  - test
  
build:vendors:
  stage: build
  only:
    refs:
      - merge_requests
      - push
  cache:
    key:
      files:
        - composer.lock
    policy: pull-push
  image: composer:2
  script:
    - composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist --optimize-autoloader
      
tests:
  stage: test
  only:
    refs:
      - merge_requests
      - push
  cache:
    key:
      files:
        - composer.lock
    policy: pull
  image: php:8.2
  script:
    - ./vendor/bin/pest --ci

Of course, you may customize the script above according to your requirements. For example, you may need to set up a database if your tests require one.

Once you have created your .gitlab-ci.yml file, commit and push the .gitlab-ci.yml file so GitLab CI/CD Pipelines can run your tests. Keep in mind that once you make this commit, your test suite will execute on all new merge requests and commits.

Example with Bitbucket Pipelines

If your application uses Bitbucket CI/CD Pipelines as its CI platform, the following guidelines will help you configure Pest so that your application is automatically tested whenever someone pushes a commit to your Bitbucket repository.

To get started, add the following configuration to your bitbucket-pipelines.yml file. The file should have the following contents:

image: composer:2

pipelines:
  default:
  - parallel:
      - step:
          name: Test
          script:
            - composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist --optimize-autoloader
            - ./vendor/bin/pest
          caches:
            - composer

Of course, you may customize the script above according to your requirements. For example, you may need to set up a database if your tests require one.

Once you have created your bitbucket-pipelines.yml file, commit and push the bitbucket-pipelines.yml file so Bitbucket Pipelines can run your tests. Keep in mind that once you make this commit, your test suite will execute on all new pull requests and commits.

Example with Chipper CI

If your application uses Chipper CI as its CI platform, the following guidelines will help you configure Pest so that your application is automatically tested whenever someone pushes a commit to your git repository.

To get started, add the following configuration to your .chipperci.yml file. The file should have the following contents:

version: 1

environment:
  php: 8.4
  node: 16

# Optional services
services:
#  - mysql: 8
#  - redis:

# Build all commits
on:
   push:
      branches: .*

pipeline:
  - name: Setup
    cmd: |
      cp -v .env.example .env
      composer install --no-interaction --prefer-dist --optimize-autoloader
      php artisan key:generate

  - name: Compile Assets
    cmd: |
      npm ci --no-audit
      npm run build

  - name: Test
    cmd: pest

In addition to handling Composer and NPM caches, Chipper CI automatically adds vendor/bin to your PATH, so running the pest --ci command will work when running tests.

Of course, you may customize the scripts above according to your requirements. For example, you may need to define a database service if your tests require one.

Once you have created your .chipperci.yml file, commit and push the .chipperci.yml file so Chipper CI can run your tests. Keep in mind that once you make this commit, your test suite will execute on all new commits.

The Tia Engine And CI

The Tia Engine re-runs only the tests affected by your latest changes, which makes it a wonderful companion while you work locally. On CI, however, you should not pass the --tia flag to the command that runs your test suite:

./vendor/bin/pest --ci        # runs the full suite on every commit
./vendor/bin/pest --ci --tia  # replays cached results — not what you want on CI

Your pipeline is the place where every test runs against a clean checkout, so it should always execute the full suite. There is one exception: the dedicated workflow that records the shared baseline your team downloads. That job is separate from your test pipeline, and it is the only place --tia belongs on CI:

      - name: Run tests
        run: ./vendor/bin/pest --parallel --tia --coverage --fresh

For the complete workflow, including how to upload the recorded baseline as an artifact, see Sharing The Baseline From CI.

Note: If you enable TIA in your tests/Pest.php file, you should use pest()->tia()->locally() rather than always(), so that TIA is skipped whenever you run Pest with the --ci flag.

Sharding Your Tests

If you have a large test suite, you may wish to shard your tests across multiple CI jobs to speed up execution time. Pest supports test sharding out of the box, allowing you to split your tests into smaller groups that may be run in parallel.

To shard your tests, you may use the --shard option when running Pest. For example, to run the first shard of your tests, you may use the following command:

./vendor/bin/pest --shard=1/5

By default, Pest splits tests evenly by count — each shard gets roughly the same number of test files. This works well when all tests take similar time, but can create imbalanced shards when some tests (like payment processing or report generation) are significantly slower than others.

Time-Balanced Sharding

For better shard balance, Pest may distribute tests based on their actual execution time using the --update-shards option. This ensures each shard takes roughly the same wall-clock time, minimizing how long your slowest CI job runs.

First, generate the timing data by running your full test suite with the --update-shards option:

./vendor/bin/pest --update-shards

This runs all tests and records each test class's duration into tests/.pest/shards.json. You may also combine it with --parallel to speed things up:

./vendor/bin/pest --parallel --update-shards

Next, commit tests/.pest/shards.json to your repository. This file is human-readable and looks like this:

{
    "timings": {
        "Tests\\Feature\\Payments\\StripeCheckoutTest": 1.608,
        "Tests\\Feature\\Reports\\SalesReportTest": 2.105,
        "Tests\\Unit\\Models\\UserTest": 0.050
    },
    "checksum": "...",
    "updated_at": "2026-04-14T10:30:00+00:00"
}

Finally, when you run --shard and tests/.pest/shards.json exists, Pest will automatically use time-balanced distribution:

./vendor/bin/pest --shard=1/5

The output will indicate that time-balanced sharding is active:

Shard:    1 of 5 — 12 files ran, out of 50 (time-balanced).

Keeping Shards Up to Date

When you add or rename test files, Pest will detect that tests/.pest/shards.json is out of date. Don't worry — your tests will still run. New test files are distributed evenly across shards, while known tests remain time-balanced. However, Pest will display a warning after the run:

WARN  The [tests/.pest/shards.json] file is out of date. Run [--update-shards] to update it.

Re-run --update-shards and commit the updated file to restore optimal balancing.

Here is how Pest handles common changes to your test suite:

  • Adding test files: Tests run with a warning. New files are distributed across shards, known files stay time-balanced.
  • Deleting test files: Tests run without a warning. Stale timing entries are harmlessly ignored.
  • Adding tests inside an existing file: Tests run without a warning. The test class is already known — only its internal timing shifts.
  • Renaming a test file: Tests run with a warning. The old name is ignored, the new name is treated as a new file.
  • Corrupted shards.json: Pest stops with a clear error asking you to delete it or run --update-shards to regenerate.

GitHub Actions Example

Here is a complete example of time-balanced sharding with GitHub Actions:

strategy:
  matrix:
    shard: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

name: Tests (Shard ${{ matrix.shard }}/5)

steps:
  - name: Run tests
    run: ./vendor/bin/pest --shard=${{ matrix.shard }}/5

To refresh timing data, you may add a scheduled or manual workflow:

name: Update Shards

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 0 * * 1' # Weekly on Monday

jobs:
  update-shards:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Update shards.json
        run: ./vendor/bin/pest --parallel --update-shards
      - name: Commit changes
        run: |
          git config user.name "github-actions"
          git config user.email "github-actions@github.com"
          git add tests/.pest/shards.json
          git commit -m "chore: update shards.json" || true
          git push

With Continuous Integration in place, your project is set up to keep its codebase stable on every commit. Next, let's take a deeper dive into Pest's concepts by exploring its test configuration capabilities: Configuring Pest →