Smoke Testing
Quick testing of critical functionality to verify the build is stable enough for further testing.
Full Definition
Smoke testing (also called build verification testing or sanity testing) is a preliminary test that checks whether the most critical functions of the software work. It's typically run immediately after a deployment.
Characteristics of smoke tests:
- •Fast: Usually < 1 hour to execute
- •Critical Path: Only the most important functionality
- •Shallow: Surface-level verification
- •Go/No-Go: Determines if further testing should proceed
Smoke testing answers: "Is this build worth testing further?"
If smoke tests fail, the build is rejected and further testing is halted until the build is fixed. This prevents wasting time on unstable builds.
Smoke tests are often automated and integrated into CI/CD pipelines.
Examples
- 1.Verify application starts without errors
- 2.Verify user can log in successfully
- 3.Verify main navigation works
- 4.Verify key transaction completes
In BesTest
Create a Smart Collection for smoke tests (Tag = smoke) that runs immediately after deployments for quick feedback.
See Smoke Testing in Action
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