When working with integration tests in a Spring-based application, it can be tempting to annotate your tests with @Transactional for the sake of convenience. After all, the idea of automatically rolling back changes after each test sounds practical. However, this approach can lead to misleading test results and ultimately harm the reliability of your integration tests. In this article, we'll explore three key reasons why you should avoid annotating integration tests with @Transactional.
Integration tests are designed to validate that different parts of your application work correctly when combined. This means simulating an environment that is as close as possible to the real conditions under which your application runs. In production, your application typically doesn't run inside a global transaction that rolls back at the end of each execution. Annotating your integration tests with @Transactional imposes an unrealistic execution context.
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