Testing Before Promotion to the Next Stage

DevOps Center Testing automatically runs assigned test suites before a work item advances to the next pipeline stage, ensuring only validated changes reach Integration, Staging, and Production.

Every time a work item is promoted from one pipeline stage to the next — from Development to Integration, Integration to Staging, or Staging to Production — DevOps Center Testing automatically runs before the promotion completes. This pre-promotion event makes sure that only work items meeting your defined quality standards advance through the pipeline, protecting downstream environments from untested or substandard changes.

Unlike the Review Event, which catches issues early in development, the pre-promotion check is your final automated quality gate before code reaches higher-stakes environments. The closer a work item gets to Production, the more critical this enforcement becomes.

What Happens During a Pre-Promotion Event

• When a work item is marked as Ready to Promote and the promotion is initiated, a Test Suite Group Execution is created for the target stage.
• Test suites assigned to the destination stage run automatically against the work item.
• Quality gates evaluate the results against the standards defined for that stage, which may be stricter than those applied at Development.
• If all quality gate requirements are met, the promotion proceeds.
• If any quality gate fails, the promotion is blocked and the developer receives the details needed to investigate, resolve, or manually re-run tests before retrying.

Note Each pipeline stage — Integration, Staging, and Production — can have its own set of test suites and quality gate rules, allowing you to apply progressively stricter standards as work items move closer to Production. See Add Test Suites to a Stage and Quality Gates.

1. View Test Details for Pre-Promotion Events
   Review the test results generated by a pre-promotion test run to assess whether a work item meets quality gate requirements before it advances to the next pipeline stage.
2. On-Demand Testing for Pre-Promotion Events
   If a Pre-Promotion Event fails, on-demand testing lets you manually verify whether tests are now passing. A new automated execution runs when the promotion is attempted again. This is most commonly used when a promotion is blocked by a failed quality gate and you need to re-trigger testing after resolving the underlying issue.