Discussions

I am working on improving the testing and deployment workflow for my team’s applications, and I would like to understand how to effectively implement smoke testing as a build gate in a CI/CD pipeline.

Specifically, I am looking for guidance on the following points:

What defines a good smoke test versus a full test suite?

How should smoke tests be structured so they run quickly and reliably after each build?

Where in the CI/CD pipeline should smoke tests be placed for maximum effectiveness?

How do smoke tests interact with deeper testing layers such as integration testing and end-to-end testing?

What are common pitfalls or anti-patterns when teams adopt smoke testing as a gate?

It would be helpful to see concrete examples, tool recommendations, and real-world practices from people who have integrated smoke testing into automated delivery systems.

Thank you in advance for any insights or shared experiences.