pytest-rerunfailures 16.3

pytest plugin to re-run tests to eliminate flaky failures

Contents

• pytest-rerunfailures

  • Requirements

  • Installation

  • Recover from hard crashes

  • Re-run all failures

  • Re-run all failures matching certain expressions

  • Re-run all failures other than matching certain expressions

  • Re-run individual failures

  • Force rerun count

  • Rerun mode

  • Show tracebacks for retried failures

  • Output

  • Compatibility

  • Priority

  • Resources

  • Development

• Changelog

  • 16.3 (2026-05-22)

  • 16.2 (2026-05-13)

    • Breaking changes

    • Features

    • Bug fixes

  • 16.1 (2025-10-10)

  • 16.0.1 (2025-09-02)

  • 16.0 (2025-08-29)

    • Breaking changes

    • Features

  • 15.1 (2025-05-08)

    • Bug fixes

    • Other changes

  • 15.0 (2024-11-20)

    • Breaking changes

    • Features

  • 14.0 (2024-03-13)

    • Bug fixes

    • Breaking changes

    • Features

  • 13.0 (2023-11-22)

    • Breaking changes

    • Features

    • Bug fixes

  • 12.0 (2023-07-05)

    • Breaking changes

    • Features

    • Bug fixes

  • 11.1.2 (2023-03-09)

  • 11.1.1 (2023-02-17)

  • 11.1 (2023-02-09)

    • Bug fixes

    • Features

  • 11.0 (2023-01-12)

    • Breaking changes

    • Bug fixes

    • Features

  • 10.2 (2021-09-17)

  • 10.1 (2021-07-02)

  • 10.0 (2021-05-26)

    • Backwards incompatible changes

    • Features

    • Other changes

  • 9.1.1 (2020-09-29)

  • 9.1 (2020-08-26)

    • Features

    • Other changes

  • 9.0 (2020-03-18)

    • Backwards incompatible changes

    • Features

  • 8.0 (2019-11-18)

    • Backwards incompatible changes

    • Features

    • Bug fixes

  • 7.0 (2019-03-28)

    • Backwards incompatible changes

    • Features

    • Bug fixes

  • 6.0 (2019-01-08)

    • Backwards incompatible changes

    • Features

    • Bug fixes

  • 5.0 (2018-11-06)

  • 4.2 (2018-10-04)

  • 4.1 (2018-05-23)

  • 4.0 (2017-12-23)

  • 3.1 (2017-08-29)

  • 3.0 (2017-08-17)

  • 2.2 (2017-06-23)

  • 2.1.0 (2016-11-01)

  • 2.0.1 (2016-08-10)

  • 2.0.0 (2016-04-06)

  • 1.0.2 (2016-03-29)

  • 1.0.1 (2016-02-02)

  • 1.0.0 (2016-02-02)

pytest-rerunfailures

pytest-rerunfailures is a plugin for pytest that re-runs tests to eliminate intermittent failures.

Requirements

You will need the following prerequisites in order to use pytest-rerunfailures:

• Python 3.10+ or PyPy3

• pytest 8.1 or newer

This plugin can recover from a hard crash with the following optional prerequisites:

• pytest-xdist 2.3.0 or newer

This package is currently tested against the last 5 minor pytest releases. In case you work with an older version of pytest you should consider updating or use one of the earlier versions of this package.

Installation

To install pytest-rerunfailures:

$ pip install pytest-rerunfailures

Recover from hard crashes

If one or more tests trigger a hard crash (for example: segfault), this plugin will ordinarily be unable to rerun the test. However, if a compatible version of pytest-xdist is installed, and the tests are run within pytest-xdist using the -n flag, this plugin will be able to rerun crashed tests, assuming the workers and controller are on the same LAN (this assumption is valid for almost all cases because most of the time the workers and controller are on the same computer). If this assumption is not the case, then this functionality may not operate.

Re-run all failures

To re-run all test failures, use the --reruns command line option with the maximum number of times you’d like the tests to run:

$ pytest --reruns 5

Failed fixture or setup_class will also be re-executed.

To add a delay time between re-runs use the --reruns-delay command line option with the amount of seconds that you would like wait before the next test re-run is launched:

$ pytest --reruns 5 --reruns-delay 1

Re-run all failures matching certain expressions

To re-run only those failures that match a certain list of expressions, use the --only-rerun flag and pass it a regular expression. For example, the following would only rerun those errors that match AssertionError:

$ pytest --reruns 5 --only-rerun AssertionError

Passing the flag multiple times accumulates the arguments, so the following would only rerun those errors that match AssertionError or ValueError:

$ pytest --reruns 5 --only-rerun AssertionError --only-rerun ValueError

Re-run all failures other than matching certain expressions

To re-run only those failures that do not match a certain list of expressions, use the --rerun-except flag and pass it a regular expression. For example, the following would only rerun errors other than that match AssertionError:

$ pytest --reruns 5 --rerun-except AssertionError

Passing the flag multiple times accumulates the arguments, so the following would only rerun those errors that does not match with AssertionError or OSError:

$ pytest --reruns 5 --rerun-except AssertionError --rerun-except OSError

Re-run individual failures

To mark individual tests as flaky, and have them automatically re-run when they fail, add the flaky mark with the maximum number of times you’d like the test to run:

@pytest.mark.flaky(reruns=5)
def test_example():
    import random
    assert random.choice([True, False])

Note that when teardown fails, two reports are generated for the case, one for the test case and the other for the teardown error.

You can also specify the re-run delay time in the marker:

@pytest.mark.flaky(reruns=5, reruns_delay=2)
def test_example():
    import random
    assert random.choice([True, False])

You can also specify an optional condition in the re-run marker:

@pytest.mark.flaky(reruns=5, condition=sys.platform.startswith("win32"))
def test_example():
   import random
   assert random.choice([True, False])

Exception filtering can be accomplished by specifying regular expressions for only_rerun and rerun_except. They override the --only-rerun and --rerun-except command line arguments, respectively.

Arguments can be a single string:

@pytest.mark.flaky(rerun_except="AssertionError")
def test_example():
    raise AssertionError()

Or a list of strings:

@pytest.mark.flaky(only_rerun=["AssertionError", "ValueError"])
def test_example():
    raise AssertionError()

Exception classes are also accepted and match any subclass:

@pytest.mark.flaky(only_rerun=[AssertionError, ValueError])
def test_example():
    raise AssertionError()

You can use @pytest.mark.flaky(condition) similarly as @pytest.mark.skipif(condition), see pytest-mark-skipif

@pytest.mark.flaky(reruns=2,condition="sys.platform.startswith('win32')")
def test_example():
    import random
    assert random.choice([True, False])
# totally same as the above
@pytest.mark.flaky(reruns=2,condition=sys.platform.startswith("win32"))
def test_example():
  import random
  assert random.choice([True, False])

Note that the test will re-run for any condition that is truthy.

Force rerun count

To force a specific re-run count globally, irrespective of the number of re-runs specified in test markers, pass --force-reruns:

$ pytest --force-reruns 5

Rerun mode

By default the marker count takes strict priority over the global --reruns setting. To make them additive instead, pass --reruns-mode=append. With append, a test decorated with @pytest.mark.flaky(reruns=2) run with --reruns 4 will be re-run up to 2 + 4 = 6 times:

$ pytest --reruns 4 --reruns-mode append

Show tracebacks for retried failures

By default only the final attempt of a flaky test produces a traceback, so failures from earlier attempts (including those of tests that ultimately pass after a rerun) are silently discarded. To inspect them, pass --rerun-show-tracebacks:

$ pytest --reruns 2 --rerun-show-tracebacks

Each retried attempt’s traceback is appended to the rerun test summary info section. The section is emitted automatically when the flag is set, so -rR is not required.

Output

Here’s an example of the output provided by the plugin when run with --reruns 2 and -r aR:

test_report.py RRF

================================== FAILURES ==================================
__________________________________ test_fail _________________________________

    def test_fail():
>       assert False
E       assert False

test_report.py:9: AssertionError
============================ rerun test summary info =========================
RERUN test_report.py::test_fail
RERUN test_report.py::test_fail
============================ short test summary info =========================
FAIL test_report.py::test_fail
======================= 1 failed, 2 rerun in 0.02 seconds ====================

Note that output will show all re-runs. Tests that fail on all the re-runs will be marked as failed.

Compatibility

• This plugin is not compatible with pytest-xdist’s –looponfail flag.

• This plugin is not compatible with the core –pdb flag.

• This plugin is not compatible with the plugin flaky, you can only have pytest-rerunfailures or flaky but not both.

Priority

You can specify arguments in three places. So if you set the number of reruns in all three, which one takes priority?

• Top priority is the marker, such as @pytest.mark.flaky(reruns=1)

• Second priority is what’s specified on the command line, like --reruns=2

• Last priority is the pyproject.toml (or pytest.ini) file setting, like reruns = 3

Additionally, all three can be overridden by passing --force-reruns argument on the command line. Passing --reruns-mode=append makes the marker count and the global --reruns / reruns ini setting additive instead of strict.

Resources

• Issue Tracker

• Code

Development

• Test execution count can be retrieved from the execution_count attribute in test item’s object. Example:

  @hookimpl(tryfirst=True)
  def pytest_runtest_makereport(item, call):
      print(item.execution_count)

Changelog

16.3 (2026-05-22)

Features

• Add --reruns-mode option (strict or append). With append, marker reruns and the global --reruns / reruns ini setting are summed instead of the marker taking strict priority. Default is strict so existing behaviour is unchanged. Fixes #321.

• Add --rerun-show-tracebacks option to display tracebacks from failed attempts that were retried, including tests that eventually passed. The rerun summary section is emitted automatically when the flag is set, so -rR is no longer required to see the tracebacks. Fixes #156.

16.2 (2026-05-13)

Breaking changes

• Drop support for pytest 8.0. Minimum pytest version is now 8.1.

Features

• Add support for pytest 9.0.

Bug fixes

• Fix missing teardown for session and module scoped fixtures when fixture teardown fails. Fixes #314.

• Clear fixture finalizers when removing cached results from failed fixtures to fix compatibility with pytest >= 9, which asserts that _finalizers is empty before executing a fixture. Fixes #323.

• Accept exception classes (not only regex strings) in the only_rerun and rerun_except marker keyword arguments instead of crashing with an internal error. Fixes #275.

16.1 (2025-10-10)

• Drop support for Python 3.9.

• Changed “localhost” to “127.0.0.1” to avoid bad hostname resolution.

• Added --force-reruns to override rerun count globally. Fixes #306.

16.0.1 (2025-09-02)

• Reverted the ability to access error attributes because of an incompatibility with pytest-xdist. Fixes #302, #303.

16.0 (2025-08-29)

Breaking changes

• Drop support for pytest < 8.

Features

• Add support for pytest 8.4.x.

• Add support for upcoming Python 3.14.

• Allow @pytest.mark.flaky(condition) to accept a callable or a string to be evaluated. The evaluated string has access to the exception instance via the error object. (#230)

15.1 (2025-05-08)

Bug fixes

• Fix --fail-on-flaky option to fail the test run with custom exit code only when reruns are detected. (#287)

• Switched to using the SPDX license identifier in the project metadata.

Other changes

• Change exception filtering logic to match AssertionError raised via assert statements when filtering by “AssertionError”. (#292)

15.0 (2024-11-20)

Breaking changes

• Drop support for Python 3.8.

• Drop support for pytest < 7.4.

Features

• Fix compatibility with pytest 8.2. (#267)

• Add support for pytest 8.2, 8.3.

• Add --fail-on-flaky option to fail the test run with custom exit code when test passed on rerun.

14.0 (2024-03-13)

Bug fixes

• Fix missing teardown for non-function scoped fixtures when using only_rerun or rerun_except queries. (#234) and (#241)

Breaking changes

• Drop support for Python 3.7.

• Drop support for pytest < 7.2.

Features

• Add support for pytest 8.0, 8.1.

13.0 (2023-11-22)

Breaking changes

• Drop support for pytest < 7.0.

Features

• Add support for Python 3.12.

Bug fixes

• Fix crashitem names mismatch between client and server. (#172)

• Fix crash when setup fails with –rerun-except flag. (#230)

12.0 (2023-07-05)

Breaking changes

• Drop support for pytest < 6.2.

Features

• Add only_rerun and rerun_except arguments to @pytest.mark.flaky marker.

• Add support for pytest 7.3, 7.4.

Bug fixes

• Failures are now rerun only if they match at least one --only-rerun pattern (if given) and none of the --rerun-except patterns. Previously, using both --only-rerun and --rerun-except together could cause failures to be rerun even if they did not match any --only-rerun pattern, and when using multiple --rerun-except patterns, all failures would be rerun unless they matched every pattern. (#225)

11.1.2 (2023-03-09)

Bug fixes

• Execute teardown when test was skipped in setup phase of a fixture.

11.1.1 (2023-02-17)

Bug fixes

• Fix crash during teardown when runtest protocol hook is overwritten by another plugin.

• Fix crash during teardown when TestCase class is used as base class.

11.1 (2023-02-09)

Bug fixes

• Run teardown of session, class, … scoped fixtures only once after rerunning tests

Features

• Expose reruns and reruns_delay through pytest.ini file.

11.0 (2023-01-12)

Breaking changes

• Drop support for Python 3.6.

• Drop support for pytest < 6.

Bug fixes

• Fix crash when pytest-xdist is installed but disabled. (Thanks to @mgorny for the PR.)

• Fix crash when xfail(strict=True) mark is used with –rerun-only flag.

Features

• Added option --rerun-except to rerun failed tests those are other than the mentioned Error.

• Add support for Python 3.11.

• Add support for pytest 7.0, 7.1, 7.2.

10.2 (2021-09-17)

Features

• Allow recovery from crashed tests with pytest-xdist.

• Add support for Python 3.10 (as of Python 3.10.rc2). (Thanks to @hugovk for the PR.)

10.1 (2021-07-02)

Features

• Allows using a str as condition for @pytest.mark.flaky(condition) which gets evaluated dynamically similarly to @pytest.mark.skipif(condition). (#162 provided by @15klli)

10.0 (2021-05-26)

Backwards incompatible changes

• Drop support for Python 3.5.

• Drop support for pytest < 5.3.

Features

• Add condition keyword argument to the re-run marker. (Thanks to @BeyondEvil for the PR.)

• Add support for Python 3.9. (Thanks to @digitronik for the PR.)

• Add support for pytest 6.3. (Thanks to @bluetech for the PR.)

• Add compatibility with pytest-xdist >= 2.0. (Thanks to @bluetech for the PR.)

Other changes

• Check for the resultlog by feature and not by version as pytest master does not provide a consistent version.

9.1.1 (2020-09-29)

Compatibility fix.

• Ignore --result-log command line option when used together with pytest >= 6.1.0, as it was removed there. This is a quick fix, use an older version of pytest, if you want to keep this feature for now. (Thanks to @ntessore for the PR)

• Support up to pytest 6.1.0.

9.1 (2020-08-26)

Features

• Add a new flag --only-rerun to allow for users to rerun only certain errors.

Other changes

• Drop dependency on mock.

• Add support for pre-commit and add a linting tox target. (#117) (PR from @gnikonorov)

9.0 (2020-03-18)

Backwards incompatible changes

• Drop support for pytest version 4.4, 4.5 and 4.6.

• Drop support for Python 2.7.

Features

• Add support for pytest 5.4.

• Add support for Python 3.8.

8.0 (2019-11-18)

Backwards incompatible changes

• Drop support for pytest version 3.10, 4.0, 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3

• Drop support for Python 3.4.

Features

• Add support for pytest version 4.4, 4.5, 4.6, 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2.

Bug fixes

• Explicitly depend on setuptools to ensure installation when working in environments without it. (#98) (PR from @Eric-Arellano)

7.0 (2019-03-28)

Backwards incompatible changes

• Drop support for pytest version 3.8 and 3.9.

Features

• Add support for pytest version 4.2 and 4.3.

Bug fixes

• Fixed #83 issue about ignored pytest_runtest_logfinish hooks. (#83) (PR from @KillAChicken)

6.0 (2019-01-08)

Backwards incompatible changes

• Drop support for pytest version 3.6 and 3.7.

Features

• Add support for pytest version 4.0 and 4.1.

Bug fixes

• Fixed #77 regression issue introduced in 4.2 related to the rerun attribute on the test report. (#77) (Thanks to @RibeiroAna for the PR).

5.0 (2018-11-06)

• Drop support for pytest versions < 3.6 to reduce the maintenance burden.

• Add support up to pytest version 3.10. Thus supporting the newest 5 pytest releases.

• Add support for Python 3.7.

• Fix issue can occur when used together with pytest-flake8 (#73)

4.2 (2018-10-04)

• Fixed #64 issue related to setup_class and fixture executions on rerun (Thanks to @OlegKuzovkov for the PR).

• Added new execution_count attribute to reflect the number of test case executions according to #67 issue. (Thanks to @OlegKuzovkov for the PR).

4.1 (2018-05-23)

• Add support for pytest 3.6 by using Node.get_closest_marker() (Thanks to @The-Compiler for the PR).

4.0 (2017-12-23)

• Added option to add a delay time between test re-runs (Thanks to @Kanguros for the PR).

• Added support for pytest >= 3.3.

• Drop support for pytest < 2.8.7.

3.1 (2017-08-29)

• Restored compatibility with pytest-xdist. (Thanks to @davehunt for the PR)

3.0 (2017-08-17)

• Add support for Python 3.6.

• Add support for pytest 2.9 up to 3.2

• Drop support for Python 2.6 and 3.3.

• Drop support for pytest < 2.7.

2.2 (2017-06-23)

• Ensure that other plugins can run after this one, in case of a global setting --rerun=0. (Thanks to @sublee for the PR)

2.1.0 (2016-11-01)

• Add default value of reruns=1 if pytest.mark.flaky() is called without arguments.

• Also offer a distribution as universal wheel. (Thanks to @tltx for the PR)

2.0.1 (2016-08-10)

• Prepare CLI options to pytest 3.0, to avoid a deprecation warning.

• Fix error due to missing CHANGES.rst when creating the source distribution by adding a MANIFEST.in.

2.0.0 (2016-04-06)

• Drop support for Python 3.2, since supporting it became too much of a hassle. (Reason: Virtualenv 14+ / PIP 8+ do not support Python 3.2 anymore.)

1.0.2 (2016-03-29)

• Add support for --resultlog option by parsing reruns accordingly. (#28)

1.0.1 (2016-02-02)

• Improve package description and include CHANGELOG into description.

1.0.0 (2016-02-02)

• Rewrite to use newer API of pytest >= 2.3.0

• Improve support for pytest-xdist by only logging the final result. (Logging intermediate results will finish the test rather rerunning it.)