Building your first smoke suite

Create a small “must-pass” set of flows you can run before every release.

A smoke suite is the fastest way to build confidence in every release: it’s a small set of must-pass flows that cover your most important user journeys.

The goal is not “test everything.” The goal is: “If this is broken, we need to know immediately.”

Before you start

  • You have a Property for the app/site you want to test.
  • If login is required, you’ve set up Credentials and verified authentication works.
  • You’ve crawled at least once so you have a baseline set of discovered Pages.

If you haven’t done these yet, start with Quickstart, then Credentials and login, and Crawling.

1) Pick the journeys (start with 3–7)

Pick flows that answer: “If this is broken, we need to know immediately.”

Common examples:

  • Sign in / sign out (or session refresh)
  • Create the core resource (project, document, ticket, etc.)
  • A critical payment or billing step (if applicable)
  • Invite a teammate / accept an invite (or role change)
  • A top navigation path that breaks easily (e.g. global search, sidebar switcher)

Keep it small. Aim for 5–15 minutes to run end-to-end.

Tip: if you can’t explain why a flow belongs in the smoke suite in one sentence, it probably doesn’t.

2) Turn each journey into a reliable flow

  1. Start from a stable entry point (typically your property base URL).
  2. Use the Flow Designer to create one flow per journey.
  3. Prefer deterministic actions:
    • Navigate by explicit links/buttons (not raw URL hacks unless you control them).
    • Avoid flaky timing; rely on app-visible states (loaded, success message, new row in table).
  4. Add a clear “done” signal at the end of the flow (e.g. “Order confirmed”, “Project created”).

If you’re unsure what to build first, run Exploratory QA once and turn the best paths into flows.

3) Validate flows with authoring runs

Before you rely on a smoke suite, make sure each flow:

  • Passes consistently across multiple runs
  • Produces useful evidence when it fails (screenshots/traces that show what happened)
  • Fails for real regressions, not for incidental UI churn

When a flow is flaky, fix the flow first. A smoke suite that flakes erodes trust quickly.

4) Run it like a release gate

  • Every release: run the smoke suite right before you ship (and again right after, if you can).
  • Nightly: schedule it to catch regressions early.
  • After major changes: auth, navigation, payments, onboarding.

If the smoke suite fails, treat it as a release blocker until you understand the cause.

A simple starter template

If you need a starting point, here’s a common 5-flow suite:

  1. Sign in (or session refresh)
  2. Navigate to the primary dashboard/list
  3. Create the primary object
  4. Edit the primary object
  5. Sign out (or switch org/workspace)

Next steps