# Parallel Test Stage Support

We've made a foundational update to the Sealights core engine to support the **parallel execution of different test stages** within the same testing environment.

This enhancement is a crucial step toward lowering the friction of onboarding and integrating Sealights into existing, high-volume CI/CD pipelines.

### Enhanced Flexibility for Complex Pipelines

Many organizations already run multiple testing phases concurrently—for example, executing "E2E Tests" and "Manual Tests" at the same time in a single lab environment.

Previously, integrating Sealights into these highly parallel workflows could be challenging. With this new capability, Sealights is now far more flexible and accommodating:

* **Seamless Integration:** The Sealights engine can now correctly process data when multiple test stages are running simultaneously in the same environment.
* **Reduced Friction:** You no longer need to strictly serialize test stages just to satisfy the data processing requirements. Sealights can adapt to your existing parallel testing procedures.
* **Consistent Data:** This update ensures that even with complex, concurrent execution, your coverage and quality data remain accurate and correctly attributed to the various test stages.

#### A Note on Concurrent Coverage Capture

To ensure **no test data is lost**, our approach has shifted for concurrent test stages:

<table><thead><tr><th width="164.33984375">Scenario</th><th width="362.7578125">Previous Behavior (Before)</th><th>New Behavior (After)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Stage X Running, Stage Y Starts</strong></td><td>When Stage Y started, coverage capture for Stage X would <strong>stop</strong> instantly. Coverage would be recorded only for Stage Y, potentially causing Stage X to report <strong>missing data</strong>.</td><td>When Stage Y starts, coverage capture for <strong>both Stage X and Stage Y continues concurrently</strong>.</td></tr></tbody></table>

**What this means for your data:** Since both stages are now captured simultaneously, Stage X and Stage Y may temporarily display a higher level of coverage than expected—what we refer to as "noise" or over-coverage. We have prioritized ensuring **all data from Stage X is captured without interruption**, even at the expense of temporary over-coverage, making sure you don't miss any critical test execution information.

### Laying the Foundation for Future Onboarding

This structural change is key to enabling significant future improvements, including:

* **Decentralized Onboarding:** This update paves the way for **post-onboarding mapping of Lab IDs**, which will allow different development and QA teams to onboard components independently and see immediate value. This removes the current complexity and time commitment required to orchestrate a central onboarding plan across multiple teams.
* **Segmented Coverage:** This foundational work supports the future ability to view coverage segmented cleanly by test stage, and also enables features like Test Impact Analysis (TIA) within these segmented views.

#### Note on User Experience (UX)

Please note that this release focuses purely on **core engine support** and structural stability. It does not include any front-end user experience (UX) changes. The benefit is immediate stability and compatibility with your existing parallel test environments.

We'd love to hear from you: **How would you like to see parallel test stages reflected and managed in the Coverage Dashboard?**\
Please share your ideas and use cases with your Customer Success Manager to help us design the most impactful UX for this new capability!