---
layout: post
title:  "Difference between Travis CI tests: PR and Push"
permalink: travis-ci-pr-push/
categories: programming
excerpt_separator: <!--more-->
---

I just want to leave this here as I often tend to look it up myself and the
first time it was not as easy to figure out.

When using Travis CI along with GitHub (or other git integrations), Travis runs
two tests: <code>pr</code> and <code>push</code>.

![travis-pr-push-github](/img/travis-ci-pr-push-github.jpg)

Most of the time you see both tests passing and you do not have to even wonder
how they are different, but it has happened to me that one of the tests fails
while the other passes and I started to wonder why.

### pr The <code>pr</code> test is a test run on the result of a merge between
the pull-request branch and the main branch. As an example, let's say your
pull-request's branch is called <code>fix-user-auth</code> and your main branch
is <code>master</code>, in this case, <code>pr</code> merges
<code>fix-user-auth</code> into <code>master</code> and then runs the tests on
the result of the merge.

### push On the other hand, <code>push</code> is run on the pull-request branch
itself, without merging. So in our example above, Travis would checkout to
<code>fix-user-auth</code> and run the tests.

### A case of difference

A case in which this difference might be more apparent is when your pull-request
is based on a branch other than <code>master</code>, and some changes that your
pull-request depends on are missing from <code>master</code>, in this case the
<code>push</code> test may pass, but the <code>pr</code> test will fail.