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Blog | Galasa

Galasa Goes Stable with v1.0.0

By | September 22, 2026

Written by Jade Carino & Eamonn Mansour from IBM and the leads for Galasa

Before diving into what’s new in v1.0.0, it’s worth taking a step back. Galasa is an open source test automation framework designed for complex integration testing across enterprise environments, including z/OS. It helps teams automate end-to-end tests that span multiple systems and technologies, making it easier to validate critical business workflows with confidence.

Galasa just crossed a big line. On July 24, the project shipped version v1.0.0, and it’s the kind of release that says the framework has grown up. After years of steady 0.x updates, Galasa now stands as a stable, production-ready tool for teams running deep integration tests across z/OS and other environments.

Importantly, Galasa didn’t become stable overnight. The v1.0.0 milestone reflects years of engineering work, community feedback, and continuous improvements delivered across previous releases. While this release introduces several useful new capabilities, it also represents the culmination of a long period of investment in security, reliability, scalability, and developer experience.

Building the Foundation

Reaching v1.0.0 wasn’t just about adding new features. Over recent releases, the Galasa team has focused heavily on strengthening the platform’s foundations.

Security has been a major area of investment, with support for secure credential management through native operating system stores, secure KeyStore handling, protected Maven repositories, expiring personal access tokens, and enhanced service-to-service communication.

The Galasa service itself has also become significantly more resilient and operationally mature. Improvements to test scheduling, cancellation handling, resource cleanup, timeout management, result retention, observability, and platform integrations have helped make large-scale testing more reliable and easier to manage.

Together, these enhancements laid the groundwork for the stability milestone that v1.0.0 represents. With that foundation in place, the latest release continues to improve the day-to-day developer experience.

 

What’s New in v1.0.0

1. No Wi-Fi? No Problem. (Say Hello to True Offline Testing)

One of the biggest headaches in testing is dependency fetching. Normally, when a developer fires up a test, the test JVM needs to reach out to remote Maven repositories to grab required bundles. If the internet is patchy (or non-existent), the tests grind to a halt.

Galasa v1.0.0 solves this with a two-step offline superpower:

  • The Pre-Fetch: Developers can now run a new command, galasactl runs prepare local. This handy tool pre-fetches all OBR bundle dependencies and stores them safely in the local Maven cache, completely independent of running the actual tests.
  • The Offline Run: Once those bundles are cached, developers can use the new –offline flag with galasactl runs submit local. This tells the test JVM to stay local and rely strictly on the local Maven cache, completely bypassing remote Maven repositories.

It’s the ultimate setup for anyone who wants to run tests on a plane, in a secure environment, or just away from the grid.

2. Docker is Optional Now (Lightweight JMeter Testing)

Performance testing is essential, but spinning up heavy Docker containers just to run JMeter can make a laptop fans sound like a jet engine taking off.

In the v1.0.0 release, the JMeter Manager now officially supports a LOCAL execution mode. Instead of depending on Docker, it can tap directly into pre-installed external JMeter binaries on the machine. It’s faster, uses fewer system resources, and cuts out the Docker middleman entirely.

3. One Command, Multiple Tests

In older versions, running multiple Galasa test classes locally was a bit of a chore because developers couldn’t run more than one in a single command.

That little annoyance is officially history. The v1.0.0 update fixes this issue, allowing developers to supply multiple –class flags in a single galasactl runs submit local command. Galasa will now happily run those test classes sequentially, one after the other, letting developers kick off a suite and grab a coffee.

4. Tightening Up Local Security

Testing often requires passwords, API keys, and certificates, and secure credentials management has been a growing focus for Galasa over the last several releases. Building on previous enhancements such as native operating system credential stores and secure KeyStore support, Galasa 1.0.0 brings two more upgrades to help developers sleep better at night:

5. Secure Credentials via Windows Credential Manager

For Windows users, keeping credentials in plain-text configuration files is a thing of the past. Galasa’s OS Credentials Store extension now supports Windows Credential Manager, extending the existing support for secure, native credential storage across operating systems. The framework can now securely read test credentials straight from Windows’ native, secure storage.

6. Smarter KeyStore Secrets Management

Secure KeyStore handling has also received a usability boost in v1.0.0. Building on the KeyStore credential capabilities introduced in earlier releases, when developers use galasactl secrets set, they can now pass an empty string (“”) as the –password. This is incredibly useful for creating or updating KeyStore secrets that don’t require an integrity-check password.

Furthermore, to prevent accidental mismatches, whenever someone updates an existing KeyStore secret, Galasa now requires both the keystore and keystorePassword fields to be provided together, ensuring everything validates correctly.

The Verdict

Galasa v1.0.0 is more than just another release. It marks the point where years of investment in security, reliability, scalability, and developer experience come together as a stable, production-ready framework for complex integration testing.

The features introduced in this release continue that journey. By eliminating Docker dependencies for performance testing, introducing robust offline workflows, enabling multi-test sequencing, and further strengthening local security, the Galasa team has made local testing feel less like a chore and more like a superpower.

For existing users, v1.0.0 is a clear signal that the framework has reached a new level of maturity. For teams discovering Galasa for the first time, it’s a great time to take a closer look.

Read the full release notes here: https://vnext.galasa.dev/releases/ 

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