Parallelize tests only when overhead is justified

Parallelizing tests has a cost in terms of database setup and fixture
loading. This change makes Rails disable parallelization when the number
of tests is below a configurable threshold.

When running tests in parallel each process gets its own database
instance. On each execution, each process will update each database
schema (if needed) and load all the fixtures. This can be very expensive
for non trivial datasets.

As an example, for HEY, when running a single file with 18 tests,
running tests in parallel in my box adds an overhead of 13 seconds
versus not parallelizing them. Of course parallelizing is totally worthy
when there are many tests to run, but not when running just a few tests.

The threshold is configurable via
config.active_support.test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests,
which is 30 50 by default.

This also adds some tracing to know how tests are being executed:

When in parallel:

```
Running 2829 tests in parallel in 8 processes
```

When not in parallel:

```
Running 15 tests in a single process (parallelization threshold is 30)
```

activesupport/CHANGELOG.md

@@ -1,3 +1,17 @@
+*   Parallelize tests only when overhead is justified by the number of them
+
+    Running tests in parallel adds overhead in terms of database
+    setup and fixture loading. Now, Rails will only parallelize test executions when
+    there are enough tests to make it worth it.
+
+    This threshold is 50 by default, and is configurable via:
+
+    ```ruby
+    config.active_support.test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests = 100
+    ```
+
+    *Jorge Manrubia*
+
 *   OpenSSL constants are now used for Digest computations.
 
     *Dirkjan Bussink*

activesupport/lib/active_support.rb

@@ -88,6 +88,7 @@ module ActiveSupport
 
   cattr_accessor :test_order # :nodoc:
   cattr_accessor :test_parallelization_disabled, default: false # :nodoc:
+  cattr_accessor :test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests, default: 50 # :nodoc:
 
   def self.disable_test_parallelization!
     self.test_parallelization_disabled = true unless ENV["PARALLEL_WORKERS"]

activesupport/lib/active_support/test_case.rb

@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ require "active_support/testing/constant_lookup"
 require "active_support/testing/time_helpers"
 require "active_support/testing/file_fixtures"
 require "active_support/testing/parallelization"
+require "active_support/testing/parallelize_executor"
 require "concurrent/utility/processor_counter"
 
 module ActiveSupport
@@ -77,20 +78,7 @@ module ActiveSupport
 
         return if workers <= 1 || ActiveSupport.test_parallelization_disabled
 
-        executor = case with
-                   when :processes
-                     Testing::Parallelization.new(workers)
-                   when :threads
-                     Minitest::Parallel::Executor.new(workers)
-                   else
-                     raise ArgumentError, "#{with} is not a supported parallelization executor."
-        end
-
-        self.lock_threads = false if defined?(self.lock_threads) && with == :threads
-
-        Minitest.parallel_executor = executor
-
-        parallelize_me!
+        Minitest.parallel_executor = ActiveSupport::Testing::ParallelizeExecutor.new(size: workers, with: with)
       end
 
       # Set up hook for parallel testing. This can be used if you have multiple

activesupport/lib/active_support/testing/parallelization.rb

@@ -42,6 +42,10 @@ module ActiveSupport
         @queue_server << work
       end
 
+      def size
+        @worker_count
+      end
+
       def shutdown
         @queue_server.shutdown
         @worker_pool.each { |pid| Process.waitpid pid }

activesupport/lib/active_support/testing/parallelize_executor.rb

@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+# frozen_string_literal: true
+
+module ActiveSupport
+  module Testing
+    class ParallelizeExecutor # :nodoc:
+      attr_reader :size, :parallelize_with, :parallel_executor
+
+      def initialize(size:, with:)
+        @size = size
+        @parallelize_with = with
+        @parallel_executor = build_parallel_executor
+      end
+
+      def start
+        parallelize if should_parallelize?
+        show_execution_info
+
+        parallel_executor.start if parallelized?
+      end
+
+      def <<(work)
+        parallel_executor << work if parallelized?
+      end
+
+      def shutdown
+        parallel_executor.shutdown if parallelized?
+      end
+
+      private
+        def build_parallel_executor
+          case parallelize_with
+          when :processes
+            Testing::Parallelization.new(size)
+          when :threads
+            ActiveSupport::TestCase.lock_threads = false if defined?(ActiveSupport::TestCase.lock_threads)
+            Minitest::Parallel::Executor.new(size)
+          else
+            raise ArgumentError, "#{parallelize_with} is not a supported parallelization executor."
+          end
+        end
+
+        def parallelize
+          @parallelized = true
+          Minitest::Test.parallelize_me!
+        end
+
+        def parallelized?
+          @parallelized
+        end
+
+        def should_parallelize?
+          ENV["PARALLEL_WORKERS"] || tests_count > ActiveSupport.test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests
+        end
+
+        def tests_count
+          @tests_count ||= Minitest::Runnable.runnables.sum { |runnable| runnable.runnable_methods.size }
+        end
+
+        def show_execution_info
+          puts execution_info
+        end
+
+        def execution_info
+          if should_parallelize?
+            "Running #{tests_count} tests in parallel using #{parallel_executor.size} #{parallelize_with}"
+          else
+            "Running #{tests_count} tests in a single process (parallelization threshold is #{ActiveSupport.test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests})"
+          end
+        end
+    end
+  end
+end

guides/source/testing.md

@@ -569,6 +569,16 @@ end
 NOTE: With disabled transactional tests, you have to clean up any data tests
 create as changes are not automatically rolled back after the test completes.
 
+### Threshold to parallelize tests
+
+Running tests in parallel adds an overhead in terms of database setup and
+fixture loading. Because of this, Rails won't parallelize executions that involve
+fewer than 50 tests. You can configure this threshold in your `test.rb`:
+
+```ruby
+config.active_support.test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests = 100
+```
+
 The Test Database
 -----------------
 

railties/test/application/configuration_test.rb

@@ -2421,6 +2421,20 @@ module ApplicationTests
       assert_equal OpenSSL::Digest::SHA256, ActiveSupport::KeyGenerator.hash_digest_class
     end
 
+    test "ActiveSupport.test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests can be configured via config.active_support.test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests" do
+      remove_from_config '.*config\.load_defaults.*\n'
+
+      app_file "config/environments/test.rb", <<-RUBY
+        Rails.application.configure do
+          config.active_support.test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests = 1234
+        end
+      RUBY
+
+      app "test"
+
+      assert_equal 1234, ActiveSupport.test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests
+    end
+
     test "custom serializers should be able to set via config.active_job.custom_serializers in an initializer" do
       class ::DummySerializer < ActiveJob::Serializers::ObjectSerializer; end
 

railties/test/application/test_runner_test.rb

@@ -567,9 +567,29 @@ module ApplicationTests
       output = run_test_command(file_name)
 
       assert_match %r{Finished in.*\n2 runs, 2 assertions}, output
+      assert_match %r{Running \d+ tests in parallel using \d+ processes}, output
       assert_no_match "create_table(:users)", output
     end
 
+    def test_avoid_paralleling_when_number_of_tests_if_below_threshold
+      exercise_parallelization_regardless_of_machine_core_count(with: :processes, threshold: 100)
+
+      file_name = create_parallel_processes_test_file
+
+      app_file "db/schema.rb", <<-RUBY
+        ActiveRecord::Schema.define(version: 1) do
+          create_table :users do |t|
+            t.string :name
+          end
+        end
+      RUBY
+
+      output = run_test_command(file_name)
+
+      assert_match %r{Running \d+ tests in a single process}, output
+      assert_no_match %r{Running \d+ tests in parallel using \d+ processes}, output
+    end
+
     def test_parallel_is_disabled_when_single_file_is_run
       exercise_parallelization_regardless_of_machine_core_count(with: :processes, force: false)
 
@@ -1140,12 +1160,14 @@ module ApplicationTests
         RUBY
       end
 
-      def exercise_parallelization_regardless_of_machine_core_count(with:, force: true)
+      def exercise_parallelization_regardless_of_machine_core_count(with:, force: true, threshold: 0)
         file_content = ERB.new(<<-ERB, trim_mode: "-").result_with_hash(with: with.to_s, force: force)
           ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= "test"
           require_relative "../config/environment"
           require "rails/test_help"
 
+          ActiveSupport.test_parallelization_minimum_number_of_tests = #{threshold}
+
           class ActiveSupport::TestCase
             <%- if force -%>
             # Force parallelization, even with single files