Smoke Test
What is Smoke Test?
A smoke test (named after hardware testing practice of powering a circuit board and checking it doesn't smoke) is a deliberately narrow, fast test suite that validates the most business-critical paths in an application. In mobile CI/CD, a smoke test is typically run on every pull request and on every build artifact before it enters full regression testing. A well-designed mobile smoke test covers: app launch, authentication (login/logout), primary navigation, and the single most revenue-critical user flow (e.g., checkout). Smoke tests should complete in under 5 minutes on a single device, they are not comprehensive, they are a gate.
Related terms
Smoke Test, frequently asked questions
A mobile smoke test should cover: (1) successful app launch, (2) login / authentication flow, (3) primary navigation to each major section, and (4) the single most critical user journey (checkout, booking, transfer). Total target runtime: under 5 minutes on a single device. Anything beyond this scope is a regression test, not a smoke test.
A smoke test is narrow and fast, it confirms the app isn't fundamentally broken. A regression test is comprehensive, it re-executes all tests to confirm that nothing that worked before has been broken by a code change. Smoke tests run on every PR; regression tests run on release candidates.