LLMShot: Reducing snapshot testing maintenance via LLMs

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Kaynak, Ergün Batuhan, Lami, Mayasah, Moslemi, Sahand, Koyuncu, Anil
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Kaynak, Ergün Batuhan
Lami, Mayasah
Moslemi, Sahand
Koyuncu, Anil
author_facet Kaynak, Ergün Batuhan
Lami, Mayasah
Moslemi, Sahand
Koyuncu, Anil
contents Snapshot testing has emerged as a critical technique for UI validation in modern software development, yet it suffers from substantial maintenance overhead due to frequent UI changes causing test failures that require manual inspection to distinguish between genuine regressions and intentional design changes. This manual triage process becomes increasingly burdensome as applications evolve, creating a need for automated analysis solutions. This paper introduces LLMShot, a novel framework that leverages Vision-Language Models (VLMs) to automatically analyze snapshot test failures through semantic classification of UI changes. To evaluate LLMShot's effectiveness, we developed a comprehensive dataset using a feature-rich iOS application with configurable feature flags, creating realistic scenarios that produce authentic snapshot differences representative of real development workflows. Our evaluation using Gemma3 models demonstrates strong classification performance, with the 12B variant achieving over 84% recall in identifying failure root causes while the 4B model offers practical deployment advantages with acceptable performance for continuous integration environments. However, our exploration of selective ignore mechanisms revealed significant limitations in current prompting-based approaches for controllable visual reasoning. LLMShot represents the first automated approach to semantic snapshot test analysis, offering developers structured insights that can substantially reduce manual triage effort and advance toward more intelligent UI testing paradigms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_10062
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle LLMShot: Reducing snapshot testing maintenance via LLMs
Kaynak, Ergün Batuhan
Lami, Mayasah
Moslemi, Sahand
Koyuncu, Anil
Software Engineering
Snapshot testing has emerged as a critical technique for UI validation in modern software development, yet it suffers from substantial maintenance overhead due to frequent UI changes causing test failures that require manual inspection to distinguish between genuine regressions and intentional design changes. This manual triage process becomes increasingly burdensome as applications evolve, creating a need for automated analysis solutions. This paper introduces LLMShot, a novel framework that leverages Vision-Language Models (VLMs) to automatically analyze snapshot test failures through semantic classification of UI changes. To evaluate LLMShot's effectiveness, we developed a comprehensive dataset using a feature-rich iOS application with configurable feature flags, creating realistic scenarios that produce authentic snapshot differences representative of real development workflows. Our evaluation using Gemma3 models demonstrates strong classification performance, with the 12B variant achieving over 84% recall in identifying failure root causes while the 4B model offers practical deployment advantages with acceptable performance for continuous integration environments. However, our exploration of selective ignore mechanisms revealed significant limitations in current prompting-based approaches for controllable visual reasoning. LLMShot represents the first automated approach to semantic snapshot test analysis, offering developers structured insights that can substantially reduce manual triage effort and advance toward more intelligent UI testing paradigms.
title LLMShot: Reducing snapshot testing maintenance via LLMs
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.10062