There is no such thing as a flaky test
“Is that failure a flaky test? — We can ignore that failure, it’s a flake — Let me rerun these; that’s a flake.” everywhere that I’ve worked; every team I’ve worked with; I’ve heard these or similar.1 When I was earlier in my career this felt reassuring and calming. The test failed, but it’s ok! It sometimes just does that, click re-run and move on. Simple!
But it also left me unsatisfied: I couldn’t ever stop that nagging voice in my head from asking “but why?