Smoke Test Runner

Overview

Execute fast, high-confidence smoke tests that validate critical application functionality after deployment or build. Smoke tests verify that the application starts, core user flows work, and key integrations respond -- without running the full test suite.

Prerequisites

• Application deployed and accessible at a known URL or running locally

• HTTP client available (curl , wget , node-fetch , or Playwright)

• List of critical endpoints and user flows to validate

• Expected response codes and content patterns for each check

• CI/CD pipeline hook for post-deployment validation

Instructions

• Identify the critical paths that constitute a "working" application:

• Health check endpoint returns 200 with expected body.

• Homepage loads and contains key UI elements.

• Authentication flow succeeds with test credentials.

• Primary API endpoint returns valid data.

• Database connection is active and responding.

• Create a smoke test configuration listing each check:

• URL or command to execute.

• Expected HTTP status code (200, 301, etc.).

• Response body pattern to match (substring or regex).

• Maximum acceptable response time (e.g., 3 seconds).

• Write the smoke test suite as a lightweight script or test file:

• Use curl for HTTP checks or Playwright for browser-based checks.

• Run checks sequentially for simplicity (parallel for speed if independent).

• Fail fast on the first critical failure.

• Log each check result with pass/fail, response time, and status code.

• Implement timeout guards:

• Set a global timeout of 60 seconds for the entire smoke suite.

• Set per-check timeouts of 5-10 seconds.

• Treat timeouts as failures, not retries.

• Add deployment-gate integration:

• On success: proceed with deployment promotion or traffic shifting.

• On failure: trigger rollback and send alert notification.

• Report results to CI/CD dashboard and Slack/Teams webhook.

• Store smoke test results as CI artifacts for audit trail.

• Schedule periodic smoke runs (every 5 minutes in production) as synthetic monitoring.

Output

• Smoke test script (scripts/smoke-test.sh or tests/smoke.test.ts )

• Pass/fail result for each critical check with response times

• Deployment gate verdict (PASS or FAIL with reason)

• CI artifact with timestamped smoke test log

• Alert payload for failed checks (Slack webhook, PagerDuty, etc.)

Error Handling

Error Cause Solution

Connection refused Application not yet ready after deployment Add a startup wait with exponential backoff (max 30 seconds) before running smoke tests

503 Service Unavailable Application is starting or behind a load balancer draining Retry with 2-second delay up to 3 times; check load balancer health check status

Unexpected redirect (301/302) URL changed or SSL redirect not accounted for Follow redirects with curl -L ; update expected URLs in smoke config

Content mismatch Page content changed but smoke test pattern is too specific Use broad patterns (check for <title> or key element IDs, not exact text)

Timeout on database check Database migration running or connection pool exhausted Increase timeout for database checks; verify migration completed before smoke tests

Examples

Shell-based smoke test script:

#!/bin/bash set -e BASE_URL="${1:-http://localhost:3000}" # 3000: 3 seconds in ms PASS=0; FAIL=0

check() { local name="$1" url="$2" expected="$3" status=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' --max-time 5 "$url") if [ "$status" = "$expected" ]; then echo "PASS: $name (HTTP $status)" ((PASS++)) else echo "FAIL: $name (expected $expected, got $status)" ((FAIL++)) fi }

check "Health check" "$BASE_URL/health" "200" # HTTP 200 OK check "Homepage" "$BASE_URL/" "200" # HTTP 200 OK check "API status" "$BASE_URL/api/status" "200" # HTTP 200 OK check "Login page" "$BASE_URL/login" "200" # HTTP 200 OK

echo "Results: $PASS passed, $FAIL failed" [ "$FAIL" -eq 0 ] || exit 1

Playwright smoke test:

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';

test('homepage loads with navigation', async ({ page }) => { await page.goto('/', { timeout: 10000 }); # 10000: 10 seconds in ms await expect(page.locator('nav')).toBeVisible(); await expect(page).toHaveTitle(/My App/); });

test('API health endpoint responds', async ({ request }) => { const response = await request.get('/api/health'); expect(response.ok()).toBeTruthy(); expect(await response.json()).toHaveProperty('status', 'ok'); });

Resources

• Smoke testing methodology: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/SmokeTest.html

• Playwright API testing: https://playwright.dev/docs/api-testing

• curl documentation: https://curl.se/docs/manpage.html

• GitHub Actions deployment gates: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/deployment/targeting-different-environments/using-environments-for-deployment