Image Retention

In the Billing page, two images retention options can be set:

1. Data Storage Limit (MB). This represents the maximum size of Old Optional data that will be stored in the account.
2. Enable snapshot deletion after data storage limit. This enables the deletion of Optional images to meet the data storage limit.

Every 24 hours, a batch job inspects the images in the account and the data storage limit. Images are categorized as Required, Optional or Orphan. All Orphan images are deleted. If the data storage limit is exceeded, the oldest Optional images are deleted until the data storage limit is met.

Image Age

The image age is the time since the image was created.

Reflow does not delete any images that have been created in the last 3 days.

Required Images

A Required Image is an image that required for a test execution. These images are always out of scope for deletion, even for free tier accounts. For example:

1. Visual assertion steps requires a Baseline image to be stored to compare future test runs.
2. Step selector images are required to be compared against for auto healing of future test executions.

Optional Images

An Optional image is any other image that is active (i.e. visible in the reflow UI), but not required (i.e. not part of a test configuration). For example:

1. All completed runs store optional images for before/after/diff steps of a test execution.
2. All completed visual assertions store element snapshots for comparison.
3. All completed steps store step selector images.

These images are in scope for deletion when the snapshot deletion toggle is enabled. These will be deleted, oldest first, to meet the configured data storage limit.

Orphan Images

An Orphan image is one that is not referenced. These are not visible in the reflow dashboard.

They can be created during exceptional scenarios or during data deletion processes. For example:

1. If a test execution is being executed by the local CLI, and the CLI was terminated during the upload process, the images uploaded can become orphaned.
2. If a test is deleted, the images associated with that test are orphaned.

All Orphan images are deleted every 24 hours.

Local Caching

When running the reflow dashboard/CLI locally, all images both captured during local test execution, and requested via the Web UI, are stored on the local hard drive.

These images do not get deleted by the cloud retention policies.

These images are stored in the following location:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/reflow-nodejs
• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\MyApp-nodejs\Data (for example, C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\reflow-nodejs\Data)
• Linux: ~/.local/share/reflow-nodejs (or $XDG_DATA_HOME/reflow-nodejs)

All images are stored in .png format.

These images can be opened manually. However, in this folder, they are referenced only by an ID and not associated with the process in which they were captured. When the dashboard is executed via the Reflow CLI, they are loaded automatically when using the Web UI localhost:3100.

Local Storage

Optionally, images can be downloaded into an arbitrary folder on the local machine for offline use. This is possible via the reflow pull images command. When executed, images will be stored under a filename associated with the operation in which they were captured.