GSoC 2025 - Syed Ali Ul Hasan
About me
- Hi there! My name is Syed, currently pursuing my Bachelors from Aligarh Muslim University, India.
- For the past year, I've been actively contributing to open source, primarily within the Palisadoes Foundation.
- I began my open source journey with Talawa in August 2024, which eventually led to my selection as a GSoC 2025 contributor for the Palisadoes Foundation.
- Outside coding, I enjoy reading tech blogs, exploring new tools, and participating in community events.
Project overview
My project focused on enhancing the testing infrastructure across Talawa repositories, with the goal of improving reliability, maintainability, and automation in testing workflows.
The key objectives were:
- Implement End-to-End (E2E) testing for Talawa Admin (web) and Talawa Mobile.
- Enhance code quality checks and introduce pre-commit validations.
- Integrate automated unit test generation using Keploy’s PR Agent.
- Establish continuous security testing using OWASP ZAP.
Technologies used: React, Flutter, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, Cypress.io, GitHub Actions, CI/CD.
Project recap
Throughout GSoC, I:
- Introduced Cypress-based E2E tests for the Talawa Admin web app.
- Set up CI/CD workflows for automated E2E runs using GitHub Actions.
- Added code coverage reporting and a POM consistency checker for test quality.
- Implemented Integration Testing for Talawa Mobile using Flutter’s Integration Test package and the Robot Pattern.
- Integrated Keploy’s PR Agent to suggest test cases automatically.
- Added OWASP ZAP scans for automated security testing.
Completed work
Relevant PRs:
- [GSOC] feat: add cypress E2E tests and commitlint
- fix: failing tests
- [GSOC] ci: added cypress tests workflow
- [GSOC] feat: Added Integration Testing
- [GSOC] feat: added code coverage report for cypress tests
- ci: Added Code Quality Check Dependency for Cypress Tests
- [GSOC] tests: added E2E tests for action items and event functionality
- [GSOC] feat: added pre-commit check for cypress tests
- [GSOC] docs: added developer docs & added posts e2e tests
- [GSOC] ci: added OWASP ZAP Security Scan
Current state
- Talawa Admin: ~60% E2E test coverage
- Talawa Mobile: ~40% integration test coverage
- Automated workflows for E2E tests within CI/CD.
- ZAP security scan into CI/CD workflow.
- Security scans and code coverage reports run automatically on every PR.
What remains
- Extend E2E coverage for User Portal (Events, Posts, Plugins).
- Add Integration Tests for Events and Chat in the mobile app.
- Further refine the security and performance testing pipelines.
Tracking these follow-up issues in:
Challenges and lessons learned
- Balancing test reliability with CI runtime optimization was challenging but rewarding.
- Gained more control with version control systems and collaborative workflows on GitHub.
- Learned to structure tests using Page Object Model and Robot Pattern, ensuring cleaner, scalable test architecture.
- Gained deep insights into GitHub Actions, CI/CD automation, and security testing integration.
- Writing documentation emphasized the importance of clarity for future contributors.
Conclusion
This project significantly strengthened Talawa’s testing infrastructure, automating quality checks and improving overall reliability.
Special thanks to my mentors Kevonia Tomlinson, Tasneem Koushar, and Md Noman Khan for their invaluable guidance, feedback, and support throughout this journey.
I also extend my gratitude to the Palisadoes Foundation community for creating such a collaborative environment.
I look forward to continuing my contributions and helping maintain these improvements beyond GSoC.
For more detailed version of this report, visit my final GSoC Project Report: Final Code.