What Is Test Data Management?
Test data management (TDM) covers how a team sources, shapes, isolates, and cleans up the data its tests need. It includes seeding known fixtures, masking sensitive fields copied from production, and resetting state between runs. Good TDM keeps tests deterministic and prevents one suite from corrupting another shared environment.
Why it matters
Tests that share mutable data flake when runs interfere or when stale records drift. Managing test data deliberately keeps each run starting from a known state, which is essential for reliable CI.
Core activities
- Seeding and resetting fixtures per run
- Masking or subsetting production data
- Isolating data per test or per branch
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