Facilitating the Merging Process of Pull Requests in Automated-Testing Robot Framework

Robot Framework is a keyword-driven test automation framework that is widely used for acceptance test-driven development to verify software systems’ functionality and quality. While automated testing scripts are developed to verify the functionalities of software systems (i.e., web services), ensuring the maintainability and correctness of automated testing scripts is vital in large-scale software projects, especially when multiple teams collaboratively develop test scripts in parallel. In this paper, we focus on how to facilitate the merging of pull requests (PRs) for projects that use the Robot Framework. We present findings from a two-year industry-academia collaboration involving three concurrently working teams, each consisting of six to eight members developing testing scripts for web services. Through detailed analysis of PR merging workflows, keyword usage patterns, and team coordination practices, we identify common bottlenecks, such as conflicting keyword dependency and unaligned script styles, that hinder efficient merging. Although the teams employ a Kanban approach, which helps limit tasks in progress, visualize workflows, and aim for continuous improvement, significant delays arose at the “Waiting for Merge” stage. Some pull requests remained unmerged for over a month, while more complex test cases could take up to two months. Our study proposes a set of best practices and an automated tool to streamline PR reviews, reduce merge conflicts, and enhance script maintainability. We discuss the observed outcomes, including improved collaboration metrics and reduced integration overhead, offering actionable insights for practitioners and researchers working with Robot Framework in multi-team environments.