Stop guessing, start seeing: the rise of Observability-Driven Testing

In 2026, our systems are too complex for our test suites to keep up. We spend weeks writing manual scripts for "known-unknowns," while the real disasters happen in the "unknown-unknowns" of production. If you are still relying on hard-coded assertions and mock data to tell you if your system is healthy, you aren't testing, you’re just hoping.

The Problem: Traditional testing treats the "Lab" and "Production" as two different worlds. We shift-left to find bugs early, but we ignore the mountain of high-fidelity data sitting in our telemetry pipelines. As we move toward non-deterministic AI agents and micro-frontend architectures, the "Expected Result" is no longer a static value; it’s a living pattern of behavior.

The Solution: Enter Observability-Driven Testing (ODT). This isn't just "testing in production"; it’s the evolution of the SDLC where production telemetry is the test oracle. In this session, we will explore how to use OpenTelemetry (OTel) and trace-based testing to bridge the gap. We will discuss how to transform production "traces" into automated integration tests, using real-user journeys to validate system correctness in real-time.