Smoke tests are a subset of test cases that cover the most important functionality of a component or system, used to aid assessment of whether main functions of the software appear to work correctly. When used to determine if a computer program should be subjected to further, more fine-grained testing, a smoke test may be called an intake test. Alternatively, it is a set of tests run on each new build of a product to verify that the build is testable before the build is released into the hands of the test team. In the DevOps paradigm, use of a BVT step is one hallmark of the continuous integration maturity stage. Quality assurance testers perform smoke testing after the developers deliver every new build of an application. If the code passes the smoke, the software build moves on to more rigorous tests, such as unit and integration tests.

• With smoke testing method, most of the defects are identified at initial stages of the software development and helps in correction of these identified defects.
• Whenever there is a new build, QA team determines the major functionality in the application to perform smoke testing.
• This one broad initial test is a more effective strategy to improve software code than if the team conducted specific and rigorous tests this early in the development process.
• Smoke tests must be run on every release that is ready for testing.
• You can automate the smoke testing process using Selenium tool which has been extensive used in the software testing industry for test automation.

Smoke Testing is usually done manually though there is a possibility of accomplishing the same through automation. A regression test might include both true and false sides of a business rule, user story or requirement. Plus, when everything in an integrated system is tested at one time, it is harder to isolate exactly where the defect might be and how it might have been introduced.

Wiktionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

For all the major or business-critical features, we should a simple test to ensure that the most commonly used functionalities are not broken. Once the product is stable, you can even think about automating the smoke tests and running it in a CI pipeline. In a CI/CD pipeline, a smoke test is very critical, because it will prevent an unstable or broken build from being pushed into production. Any failure indicates a need to handle the system back to the development team. Whenever there is a change in the build, we perform Smoke Testing to ensure the stability.

This is due to many factors, some of which are quite challenging to overcome. For example, in testing APIs, failures are often seen due to very basic defects. When tested early using smoke tests, APIs can be verified and validated to help achieve solid integration.

Similar to smoke tests, regression tests should be implemented often, with every new build. Unlike smoke tests, however, regression tests are in-depth and detailed. While performing the functional testing, if the test engineer identifies the major bug in the early stages, sometimes it is not suitable for the developer to find a major bug in the initial stages. So the test engineer will perform the smoke testing before doing the functional, integration, system, and other types of testing. If this method of testing is not performed then there is every chance of some integration errors that might crop up while performing other methods of software testing.

So the same lines when you have a software product or mobile app, you do a round of basic checks to make sure that the software or app is ready for testing. This kind of testing which is done to make sure that the build is stable enough to undergo regression and functional testing is called Smoke Testing. In Software Engineering, Smoke testing should be performed on each and every build without fail as it helps to find defects in early stages. Smoke test activity is the final step before the software build enters the system stage. Smoke tests must be performed on each build that is turned to testing. This applies to new development and major and minor releases of the system.

Software Testing Tools

If we do not conduct smoke testing in the early phases, problems may be discovered later on when it is more costly. Defects discovered later in time might be huge, affecting the completion of projects. All manual steps done in the software build are recorded using an automated tool by the test engineer. While no particular lifecycle is required for smoke tests, perhaps the most common context today is a CI/CD pipeline, such as seen in DevOps or agile. The test engineer knows that the module is independent testable because we have already done one round of smoke testing on them. It usually consists of a minimum number of test cases and hence we cannot find the other issues that happened during the testing process.

Before doing smoke testing, the QA team must confirm that the application under test is in the right build version. It is a straightforward method that takes very little time to test the application’s stability. If the test is successful, we will move on to functional testing.

More Definitions of Smoke test

The goal of these smoke tests is to ensure that the build has basic integrity. While a complete set of robust tests is often seen as the goal in software testing, there is a risk when these tests are performed in a burst of testing activity. The risk is that so many failures can be found so quickly that the developers are overwhelmed and unable to fix the defects quickly enough to keep up with continued testing and re-testing. However, smoke tests can be performed in other contexts than Continuous Integration, such as traditional integration testing. Regression tests target specific operations of software and can take a few hours to complete. For example, regression testing explicitly checks each link on an updated webpage to verify that each link still works as intended.

Smoke testing in the practice of software development and software testing has become a commonly used technique for the early and continuous detection of software defects. There are many ways that smoke testing can be applied in software applications and systems. In this article, we explore some interesting history of how the term “smoke testing” originated, and then use that history as an analogy for finding defects in software and systems. We also show examples of how smoke testing can be designed and performed in a variety of contexts. Regression testing is a separate way to verify good software code. Regression testing ensures that changes to a program do not add new bugs that inadvertently compromise the performance or integrity of the software.

Smoke tests are often performed in conjunction with a new build or commit. Early and simple tests can help avoid these risks while at the same time reducing the cost of fixing the defects. Since defects can cause a ripple effect in software, a defect found and fixed early is a good thing. It is easy testing to perform because it saves our test https://globalcloudteam.com/ effort and time. Genetic test means an analysis of human DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or metabolites, that detect genotypes, mutations, or chromosomal changes. Drug use test means a scientifically substantiated method to test for the presence of illegal or performance-enhancing drugs or the metabolites thereof in a person’s urine.

What is Smoke Testing and why is it important?

There is confusion between the terms smoke testing and sanity testing in the software industry. Some professionals use the term sanity testing as an equivalent to smoke testing, while others use sanity testing as a term that refers to a subset of regression testing. When the term sanity testing is used to mean a subset of regression testing, the scope of testing is often assumed to be narrow and in-depth. Automated smoke testing can drastically cut down on testing time. Manual testing can take half a day depending on the number of smoke tests involved. After automating those tests, smoke testing can take only a few minutes.

Smoke testing is performed during the development phase in order to determine whether the requirements are in-line with the build. If your application involves a user creation, then you should try to create a new user and check if the system is successfully allowing you to do that. This is an important point that is missed many times because testers continue to use old login credentials without testing for a new user. There can be a situation where, either the expected code changes are not there in the build or even that some major functionality is broken. Smoke tests can minimise test effort, and can improve the quality of the application. Smoke testing can be done either manually or by automation depending on the client and the organization.

In PractiTest, you can initiate the run of smoke tests, either in manual or automated ways. In Figure 4, you can see an example of smoke tests that are ready to run. Suppose, we are using an eCommerce site, and the core working of this site should be login, specific search, add an item into the cart, add an item into the favorite, payment options, etc. After testing, the tester has to be sure and confident about the functioning of the function of the application. We do smoke testing to make sure that the application is installed correctly.

Smoke tests can be performed either manually or in some cases can also be automated. But, typically sanity testing does not have any specific test cases or test scripts. The smoke tests are run manually in this method of smoke testing wherein for each newly added feature, the scripts have to be updated or based on the need new scripts will have to be created. This testing should take place at the beginning of the software testing life cycle. Smoke testing quickly verifies the quality of the build and evaluates the basic tasks whether they can be executed or not.

TCoE Setup

Selenium automates control of browsers on various operating systems . PhantomJS is an option for integration and automation with continuous integration tools, such as Jenkins and TeamCity. PhantomJS is not resource-intensive and works well in networking monitoring. The term smoke testing originates from a basic type of hardware testing in which a device passes the test if it doesn’t catch fire the first time it turns on. Smoke testing is the preliminary check of the software after a build and before a release. This type of testing finds basic and critical issues in an application before the team performs critical testing.

Automation Testing

Automation testing is also used wherein a set of automated test cases are used to run the smoke tests. With the help ofautomation tests, developers can check build immediately, whenever there is a new bug noted in the build. Either QA lead or QA Engineers are responsible to perform smoke testing.

Immediately after each build is created, a suite of smoke tests, or build verification tests are performed and evaluated. In a CI flow, this is an automated process to keep pace with daily or even more frequent builds. We will perform smoke testing in the beginning and detect the bugs in the basic features and send it to the development team definition of smoke test so that the development team will have enough time to fix the bugs. In this scenario, if we are already perform the smoke testing and found the blocker bug and also resolved that bug. After performing the system testing, we will send the application from the testing server to the end-user server for one round of user acceptance testing.

Related words

Smoke Testing does not cover all the functionality in the application. If this basic functionality fails, there is no point investing time in more detailed QA work at this stage. Performance Tests means the tests to be conducted on the equipment at site for checking the performance parameters of the equipment as defined in Technical Specification. Once the smoke tests are created then they can be run on the build and results can be analyzed. When the time is less and the new build is ready for deployment, automation can be used to smoke test. That is one should go through the application try to touch upon the frequently used functionality and pages to ensure all the navigations are working as expected.

It is a mini and rapid regression test of major functionality. It is a simple test that shows the product is ready for testing. This helps determine if the build is flawed as to make any further testing a waste of time and resources.

In this, the development team sends the application to the Test Lead. Then the test lead will instruct the testing team to do smoke testing and send the reports after performing the smoke testing. Once the testing team is done with smoke testing, they will send the smoke testing report to the test lead.