What is smoke testing?

Smoke testing is done by developers before the build is released or by testers before accepting a build for further testing.; In Software smoke test is the process of validating code changes before the changes are checked into the larger product’s official source code collection.

It is designed as a pacing mechanism for time critical projects, allowing the software team to assess its project on a frequent basis
Software components are integrated in to a build
A series of tests to uncover major errors that have the highest likelihood of throwing the software project behind schedule
Entire product is smoke tested daily
Smoke test should be thorough enough that if

Guidelines for Smoke Testing



In software, the term smoke testing describes the process of validating code changes before the changes are checked into the product’s source tree. After code reviews, smoke testing is the most cost effective method for identifying and fixing defects in software. Smoke tests are designed to confirm that changes in the code function as expected and do not destabilize an entire build.
The following guidelines describe best practices for smoke testing. The effects of following the guidelines will vary widely, ranging from improving communication among team members to developing specific ways to use testing and debugging tools.

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Work with the Developer

Because smoke testing focuses on changed code, you must work with the developer who wrote the code. You will have to understand:

• What changed in the code. To understand the change, you will also have to understand the technology used; the developer can help explain it.
• How the change affects the functionality.
• How the change affects the interdependencies of various components.

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Conduct a Code Review Before Smoke Testing

Before you run a smoke test, conduct a code review that focuses on any changes in the code. Code reviews are the most effective and efficient method to validate code quality and ensure against code defects and faults of commission. Smoke tests ensure that the primary critical or weak area identified either by code review or risk assessment is primarily validated, because if it fails the testing cannot continue.

Install Private Binaries on a Clean Debug Build

Because a smoke test must focus on validating only the functional changes in updated binaries, the test must run on a clean test environment by using the debug binaries for the files being tested.

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Create Daily Builds

Daily builds require the team members to work together and encourage the developers to stay in sync. If iterations of new builds are delayed, the delay can easily cause products with multiple dependencies to get out of sync. Following a process of building daily and smoke testing any changed or new binaries ensures high quality.
For more information about setting up recurring builds, see Running Builds in Team Foundation Build. For more information about verifying your product’s builds, see How to: Configure and Run Build Verification Tests (BVTs).

You need not perform exhaustive tests. The purpose of smoke testing is not to ensure that the binary is 100% error-free. This would require too much time. You perform smoke tests to validate the build at a high level. You want to ensure that changes in a binary do not destabilize the general build or cause catastrophic errors in functionality.
Web and Load Testing

When you build your Web tests and load tests, it is a good practice to run a smoke test before running any long, heavy test. In Web and in load testing, smoke testing is short, light test. You use a smoke test to validate that everything is correctly configured and running as expected before running your tests for performance or stress testing.

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Its nothing but to check application whether its stable or not and if its stable then only move into testing team.

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V.Vadivelan

There never a wrong time to do the right thing.

It is a preliminary test to check out the defects in a software before it is released in order to fix the problems. It is the first initial test to make sure application is working.

Ammulu,

Please include sentence along with this that "before release to testing team"

t is a preliminary test to check out the defects in a software before it is released to testing team in order to fix the problems. It is the first initial test to make sure application is stable or not?

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V.Vadivelan

There never a wrong time to do the right thing.

Smoke testing: It is an extra shakeup in sanity testing. In this level testing team reject a build with reason when that build is not working to be applied for complete testing.Before start testing intialy tester check major functionality wrking properly or not that is smoke testing it is done by tester only not by developer. All testing activity are done by tester .exclude unit testing.Its a integration Testing approach, In which process the all units/components are coupled to get the stable build.