Robocon 25: Let's go to Helsinki! ✈️

Simon Meggle

February 10, 2025

Robocon – a brief overview

Robocon (https://robocon.io) is the leading international conference on Robot Framework.
It takes place in Helsinki every year and is organized by the Robot Framework Foundation, the non-profit organization behind the project.

The event offers a great mix of high-quality talks, lightning talks and interactive workshops.
The conference is aimed at both beginners and experienced users of Robot Framework.

It’s a great opportunity to gain new insights, learn about best practices and talk to other test automation experts.

Why I’m particularly looking forward to Robocon 2025

Of course, I look forward to this event every year – but this time is particularly special.
Not only because the agenda is packed with interesting topics (see below), but also because this year sees the introduction of the first official certification for Robot Framework called “RFCP” 🏅 (Robot Framework Certified Professional).

I had the honor of being part of the working group that developed the syllabus for the RFCP.
The introduction of this certification is a milestone for the community and a big step towards further establishing Robot Framework as a professional test automation solution.
I am proud to be one of the first accredited trainers and look forward to holding my first training sessions soon. (Hello Munich, I’m looking forward to it! 🙋‍♂️)

But now to the real highlight: the most exciting topics at this year’s Robocon.

AI and self-healing tests

It is clear to see that AI is slowly coming of age in the Robot Framework ecosystem.

Several talks are dedicated to this topic – a sign that automation and machine learning are becoming increasingly intertwined.

I am particularly looking forward to the following sessions:

“Make Automation Green Again – Experiments with AI supported self-healing”

Here, Many Kasiriha will show how AI can help to automatically repair failing tests during execution.

(Many’s talks are legendary in the community – his way of getting to the heart of complex topics regularly prompts reactions along the lines of “More of that!” 😊 )

“Appium Self-healing for RobotFramework AppiumLibrary”

Mobile Testing on iOS and Android is an area that I definitely want to include in my training program in the medium term.

The ability to integrate self-healing test mechanisms directly into the AppiumLibrary could alleviate many of the typical challenges in mobile testing.
Because one thing I know from my own experience: mobile UI tests are often a real challenge – especially when debugging.

“Dear AI, Which Tests should Robot Framework Execute Now?”

The title alone sounds promising.
Elmar Jürgens will show how AI can help to select specifically those tests that are most likely to find the next bug from an ever-increasing number of tests.

A solution that not only saves testing time but could also significantly increase the efficiency of test automation.

“Redefining Automation with Robot Freamework: Harnessing AI, LLMs, and Custom Libraries for Next-Gen Testing”

This is guaranteed to be exciting! Siddhant Wadhwani will show in a live demo how AI and LLMs can be used in custom libraries – including for self-healing tests and real-time test analysis.

My conclusion in advance:

AI will also be a game changer in test automation – and this is just the beginning.

DevOps & CI/CD

As a long-time Ansible user, when I think of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), I naturally think of provisioning on-prem servers. But there are many more exciting possibilities, as Nils Balkow-Tychsen will show in his talk:

“Infrastructure as Code – Yet another super power for your test automation”

Nils has developed a library for OpenTofu (the open-source fork of Terraform).

This means that Robot Framework can not only execute tests, but also dynamically set up and tear down its own test infrastructure! Very cool!

Performance and load testing

Two talks are dedicated to performance testing – an area that is often underestimated:

“Utilizing RF Swarm to Execute Performance Testing on PostgreSQL Database Upgrade”

Omoghomion Oredia will show how he used RF Swarm to test a PostgreSQL migration on AWS.

This is a practical example that shows how Robot Framework can be used for more than just functional testing.

“Perfbot – Integrated performance analysis of robot tests”

I am particularly looking forward to this talk by Lennart Potthoff because of my secondary role as Product Manager for Robotmk at Checkmk.

Performance measurements and historical recordings are essential features of Robotmk for permanently monitoring Robot Framework tests. Perhaps Perfbot can be integrated into Synthetic Monitoring with Robotmk?

UI Testing

“Robot Framework to the Rescue: Replacing EggPlant with a Custom UI-Test Library”

Wow! Finally, something is happening in the area of UI testing.

The PlatynUI library is a cross-platform desktop UI automation library that promises to be a real alternative to existing solutions such as ImageHorizonLibrary.

👉 Will the PlatynUI library become my new favorite library? I’m excited! 😉

Summary

The agenda for Robocon 2025 shows clear trends:

AI is increasingly being combined with test automation – self-healing, predictive testing & LLMs are on the rise.
Mobile test automation with AppiumLibrary is moving more into focus (and is also gradually becoming usable…)
Robot Framework is definitely also more and more important for DevOps & CI/CD topics.
Old tools are being replaced by new solutions, adding value to the Robot Framework ecosystem: EggPlant → Robot Framework, Terraform → OpenTofu. ⭐️

Conclusion & outlook

Robocon 2025 will definitely be a highlight – not only because of the exciting topics, but also because of the great community.
I am looking forward to exchanging ideas with like-minded people, the latest developments in the Robot Framework ecosystem and, of course, a few days in Helsinki.

…boarding time! 💺

P.S.: Guess who is stupid enough to fly to Helsinki in February without a hat 😂