Octopus Mobile Test Failure Triage
A red CI badge on your phone is not a command to start guessing. It is a request to decide whether the failure is obvious, owned, and small enough to handle mobile.
`nUse Octopus to inspect the failed assertion, changed files, and artifact state. Fix from mobile only when the cause is narrow; otherwise leave a useful handoff.
What signal comes first?
Read the failing assertion before reading chat. Chat will happily give you five theories and no stack trace.
The assertion tells you whether this is a snapshot drift, timeout, missing fixture, environment problem, or real behavior break.
How do you compare against the diff?
Match the failure to the changed files. If the failing test is outside the touched area, slow down. It may still be related, but the phone is no place for heroic dependency archaeology.
Octopus helps by keeping the thread and diff close enough that you can write a clean triage note without reopening half the project.
Which artifacts matter?
Screenshots, logs, coverage changes, and build metadata matter more than the red badge itself. A screenshot diff can justify a mobile copy fix; a flaky timeout usually cannot.
If artifacts are expired or missing, your next action is to rerun or hand off, not invent a diagnosis.
When is mobile enough?
Mobile is enough for typo fixes, fixture path corrections, obvious expectation updates, or a clear revert. It is not enough for cross-service behavior or race conditions.
CI triage from mobile
- Read the exact failing assertion first.
- Map the failed test to changed files.
- Open screenshots or logs before proposing a fix.
- Decide fix, rerun, revert, or handoff in one comment.
- Mention what you did not verify.
Stop rule: If the failure involves timing, data races, migrations, or shared auth state, stop and hand it to a workstation session.
What should you read next?
Use the app page when you need the tool, then use the related guide only if the next decision is still unclear. The point is to shorten the work, not decorate the tab bar.
Which sources shaped the advice?
The outside links below are here for technical context and platform behavior. The workflow above is deliberately narrower than the news cycle.
What is the takeaway?
Octopus is most useful when the operator makes one specific decision before opening the app: what evidence, signal, or file state would actually change the next action. Everything else is just screen activity with a nicer icon.