reporting-and-artifacts.md

CI: Reporting and Artifacts

When to use: You need actionable outputs for failed and passed Cypress runs in CI. Prerequisites: ci-github-actions.md, ci-gitlab.md, test-coverage.md

Core Outputs to Preserve

• cypress/screenshots (failures)
• cypress/videos (run recordings)
• JUnit XML (cypress/results/*.xml) for CI test dashboards
• Optional HTML/Allure artifacts

Pattern 1: JUnit Reporter for CI Integration

Install:

npm i -D mocha-junit-reporter

Configure:

// cypress.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'cypress';

export default defineConfig({
  reporter: 'junit',
  reporterOptions: {
    mochaFile: 'cypress/results/junit-[hash].xml',
    toConsole: false,
  },
});

Pattern 2: Mochawesome HTML Report

Install:

npm i -D mochawesome mochawesome-merge mochawesome-report-generator

Config example:

import { defineConfig } from 'cypress';

export default defineConfig({
  reporter: 'mochawesome',
  reporterOptions: {
    reportDir: 'cypress/results/mochawesome',
    overwrite: false,
    html: false,
    json: true,
  },
});

Merge and generate:

npx mochawesome-merge cypress/results/mochawesome/*.json > cypress/results/merged.json
npx marge cypress/results/merged.json -o cypress/results/html

Pattern 3: Allure (Optional)

Install (plugin choice depends on your stack):

npm i -D @shelex/cypress-allure-plugin allure-commandline

Then publish allure-results/ and generated allure-report/ as artifacts.

CI Artifact Upload Examples

GitHub Actions

- name: Upload screenshots
  if: failure()
  uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
  with:
    name: cypress-screenshots
    path: cypress/screenshots
    if-no-files-found: ignore

- name: Upload videos
  if: always()
  uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
  with:
    name: cypress-videos
    path: cypress/videos
    if-no-files-found: ignore

- name: Upload junit
  if: always()
  uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
  with:
    name: cypress-junit
    path: cypress/results/*.xml
    if-no-files-found: ignore

GitLab

artifacts:
  when: always
  paths:
    - cypress/screenshots/
    - cypress/videos/
    - cypress/results/
  reports:
    junit: cypress/results/*.xml

Retention Recommendations

• PR runs: keep 7-14 days
• main/nightly regression: keep 14-30 days
• release-candidate validation: keep longer if compliance requires it

Anti-Patterns

Anti-pattern	Problem	Better approach
Uploading only on success	Failing runs lose debug data	Upload failure artifacts always
Huge raw artifacts without structure	Hard to find useful files	Separate screenshots/videos/results paths
No junit output	CI UI lacks test-level visibility	Emit JUnit XML consistently

Troubleshooting

No screenshots/videos in CI

• Verify video and screenshotOnRunFailure settings.
• Confirm artifact upload steps use if: always() or when: always.

JUnit report not recognized

• Confirm XML path matches CI pattern.
• Avoid overwriting same filename from parallel jobs unless merged intentionally.

Related

• ci-github-actions.md
• ci-gitlab.md
• parallel-and-sharding.md