OpenTAP Test Automation
OpenTAP is an open source project and test automation platform that accelerates development, deployment, and execution of automated tests, built to support agentic test automation.
The goal of OpenTAP is to transform test automation from a largely homegrown, isolated endeavor into a standardized activity that speeds test development and adds innovative capabilities, including AI-driven ones.
The result: one platform and one interface built for both test engineers and agents.
OpenTAP Highlights
Open Source, letting OpenTAP leverage community collaboration to create broadly interoperable, modular, reusable technology.
Modular, scalable and performant, enabling rapid prototyping, easy customization and rock-solid production deployment.
AI-composable architecture, so engineers and AI agents alike can assemble plugins into new automation solutions.
Model-agnostic, OpenTAP works with the LLM or agent framework of your choice.
Bypass the Homegrown Bottleneck
Many organizations developed test automation software in-house. These homegrown frameworks used available tools and bespoke software, usually with minimal documentation and no considerations for scalablity, standardization or maintainability — technical dead-ends, however long-lived.
The limitations of such homegrown test software become painfully visible when product test requirements change faster than legacy test automation code. When testing teams each took their own path, it created bottlenecks of expertise: only a few developers ever understood the underlying code, and often they have moved on to other projects. The inertia and technical debt of legacy test software cannot accommodate new multi-function products, high-performance 5G/6G infrastructure equipment and other next-generation technologies. And now, homegrown software is in no position to embrace AI-driven test workflows. This capability mismatch results in untenable costs and missed market windows.
The solution lies in open, standards-based software, ready to work together with AI agents as well as with engineers.
That's where OpenTAP comes in, supporting a wide range of applications and plugins, a strong technical community, and an ecosystem of third-party hardware and software vendors — all dedicated to streamlining and accelerating test automation.
The OpenTAP Mission
The OpenTAP mission is to provide a test automation solution built on simplicity, scalability, and speed to make test automation easier and more accessible for all — for engineers and, increasingly, for the AI agents that work alongside them.
OpenTAP supports agentic test automation, is MCP-compliant, and is model agnostic, with a modular, AI-composable architecture that provides a single interface for both agents and engineers.
We love to experiment and innovate. We invite you to do the same. Working together, we will inspire and teach one another better ways to automate. Join our community.
OpenTAP History
The Disruptive Role of Open Source
The 1980s brought about the standard practice of system vendors and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) supplying software exclusively as precompiled binaries that were opaque and inaccessible. But developers and academics wanted the freedom to understand how software systems function. They wanted to repair and modify code for unique needs and circumstances. These needs drove the creation of the Free Software movement. By the late 1990s, the term "open source" joined the lexicon and open source software rose to prominence in the software industry.
Today, developers, system vendors, and device manufacturers embrace open source for its rapid evolution, short time-to-innovation, and diversity of business models. By building on a global community of trained engineers, open source brings the peace of mind of avoiding vendor lock-in and reducing long-term risk.
The Emergence of OpenTAP
OpenTAP was born on a rainy afternoon in the city of Aalborg, Denmark. Inspired by innovative Danish brewers who collaborate with established breweries to create their own unique recipes, the OpenTAP project aims to brew something great for test and measurement automation.
First as an inner source effort and then as a core element of Keysight Technologies products, OpenTAP development has been driven by simplicity, scalability, and speed since 2009. A decade later, Keysight Technologies launched its test automation platform as a new open source project named OpenTAP.
OpenTAP today gives test engineers a path away from external and internal lock-in by legacy test automation. With its MCP-compliant, model-agnostic, AI-composable architecture, OpenTAP gives AI agents that same open path in.