Partial Builds

Learn how to use partial builds if you aren’t performing a full test run on every CI build.

A partial build in Percy focuses on capturing specific elements or components of the application’s interface as visual snapshots, as opposed to capturing the entire interface like in a normal build.

Usage

To designate a build as a partial build, set the PERCY_PARTIAL_BUILD environment variable to 1. This indicates that the build intentionally captures only a subset of the snapshots from a full build.

Things to keep in mind

• Partial builds should be reserved for feature branches. Ensure that your default base branch (usually master) always generates full builds to guarantee that all baseline snapshots are present in the master builds.
• Setting the partial environment variable will display a ‘partial’ title in the build, making it easy to identify as a partial build.

• If you run a build without a complete set of snapshots, consider using PERCY_PARTIAL_BUILD to prevent the display of the missing snapshots dialog box.