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Path Coverage - CI/CD Glossary Definition

Path coverage measures whether every distinct execution path through the code has been tested.

Path coverage requires that every possible route through a function (each unique combination of branches) is executed by tests. It is the most exhaustive and least practical coverage metric.

The number of paths grows exponentially with the number of branches, so full path coverage is usually infeasible. It is mostly a theoretical upper bound.

In practice

Teams rarely target path coverage directly. Branch coverage is the practical stand-in for most CI pipelines.

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