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AI · September 5, 2023

Shadow Testing for Decision/or Algorithms

Hi HN! I’m a founder at Nextmv (YC 20) [1] We’ve been building out optimization algorithm testing capabilities (acceptance tests, etc.) and just shipped our first pass at shadow testing [2, 3]. In our experience, tools like shadow testing save time and build confidence in decision models, but tools also take time to build and maintain. We’ve seen shadow testing tools in the machine learning and MLOps space [4], but not so much in the operations research community. A lot of folks here [5] seem experienced with optimization models and we’d love to have your feedback! What do you like? What…

Shadow Testing for Decision/or Algorithms launched on September 5, 2023 with 7 votes, #1,586 of 4,228 launches that month and more than 50% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 3 years on.

What it does

Shadow testing isn’t just for the MLOps crowd. Decision algorithm teams can have it too for their optimization models solving routing, scheduling, allocation, and fulfillment problems across supply chain, retail, healthcare, and more.

We're thrilled to announce our first release of shadow testing in Nextmv! Shadow testing is a useful way to de-risk algorithm rollout and build confidence in deploying model changes to production systems. Nextmv users can now run a test model alongside a production model using the same online inputs and production conditions with the goal of analyzing and sharing model performance results. Check out this video for a quick walkthrough and read on for more details. This latest release builds on a lot of Nextmv engineering effort and customer feedback from the last few months. In our experience, it's one thing to say you want to do shadow testing (or other types of tests), it's another to…from nextmv.io

In the maker’s words, at launch

Hi HN! I’m a founder at Nextmv (YC 20) [1] We’ve been building out optimization algorithm testing capabilities (acceptance tests, etc.) and just shipped our first pass at shadow testing [2, 3]. In our experience, tools like shadow testing save time and build confidence in decision models, but tools also take time to…

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