An annotation is an informational, warning or error message associated with a code element in the test model.

Test frameworks publish annotations on the test model that describe usage errors or warnings about problems that may prevent tests from running, such as using a custom attribute incorrectly. They may also emit informational annotations to draw the user's attention, such as by flagging ignored or pending tests.

The presentation of annotations is undefined. A command-line test runner might simply log them whereas an IDE plugin could generate new task items to incorporate them into the UI.