Agentic AI Notebook
Phase 19

Regression Testing

~2 min read

Concept & How It Works

  • Key points are in the visual diagram above.

Why Does It Exist?

A one-line prompt tweak can break 15% of cases. Automated regression tests make agent development as safe as traditional software engineering.

Real-World Analogy

Agent regression tests are unit tests for behavior — green means ship, red means you broke something you promised worked.
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Visual Workflows

What is Regression Testing?

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Example

Scenario

PR changes router prompt; CI runs 80-case eval; 6 previously passing billing cases now route to wrong agent — merge blocked.

Solution

In Eval Engineering & Observability, apply Regression Testing to this scenario: PR changes router prompt; CI runs 80-case eval; 6 previously passing billing cases now route to wrong agent — merge blocked. Identify the inputs, run the technique, validate the output, and note one thing you would monitor in production.

Practice Task

Do this before moving to the next module — reading alone is not enough.

Open the Code Walkthrough below and run it locally. Change one parameter related to Regression Testing (e.g. model, temperature, top_k, or tool name), observe the difference in output, and write 2–3 sentences explaining what changed.

Code Walkthrough

Highlighted lines show where Regression Testing happens in the code.

Regression Testing
1def test_support_regression():  # define a reusable function2    failures = run_eval_suite(agent, dataset="golden_v12", min_pass_rate=0.92)3    assert not failures, f"Regressions: {failures[:5]}"  # key line for Regression Testing

Commands to Remember

Commands to Remember

  • pip install langsmith # trace and evaluate LLM runs
  • pip install arize-phoenix # open-source LLM observability
  • pip install opentelemetry-api opentelemetry-sdk # distributed tracing

Common Mistakes

  • Treating Regression Testing as a black box without evaluation
  • Ignoring cost and latency in production
  • Skipping error handling for regression testing

Cheat Sheet

Quick recap — the most important points from this module.

Cheat Sheet

quick ref
  • Regression Testing
  • Golden Dataset
  • CI Gate
  • Canary