smoke-test

Smoke Test

Launch the app and hands-on verify that it works by interacting with it. Every smoke test is a concrete interaction with the running app: navigating a screen, clicking a control, filling a form, running a CLI command, and observing the result.

Step 1: Determine Scope

Resolve scope using the first match:

1. User-specified — the user says what to test. Use that.
2. PR — a PR URL or number is provided. Fetch the PR details (title, description, changed files, comments) and read the changed code.
3. Conversation context — prior conversation contains recent work (a feature, fix, or refactor). Extract what changed, where it lives, and expected behavior.
4. App-level discovery — fresh context with no prior work. Examine the project (entry points, routes, commands, README) to identify the app's core user-facing flows. Design tests that verify the app launches and its primary functionality works end-to-end.

Step 2: Determine Testing Approach

Always check for project-specific testing skills or MCP tools first. Use the fallbacks below when nothing project-specific is available:

• Web app → /agent-browser skill if available, otherwise claude-in-chrome MCP
• UI/native app → computer-use MCP
• CLI tool → direct terminal execution
• Library with no entry point → report that smoke testing is not applicable and stop

Step 3: Plan Smoke Tests

Before drafting tests, check whether there is something to exercise:

• No user-visible change in the resolved scope — look for an existing integration test target that covers the change and is not part of the default test suite (so it hasn't already run in this session). If one exists, run it via the Integration Test Path in Step 4. If nothing exists, report that there is no interactive surface to verify and no separate integration suite to fall back on, then stop.
• Required infrastructure cannot be stood up in this session (backend service, auth provider, seed data, external dependency) — look for a stub before reporting blocked. When the dependency is reached through a client whose endpoint is runtime configuration, repoint that endpoint at a local stub; the same interception yields an artifact the system emits rather than provides (a token, a session identifier, a single-use link). Confine this to runtime configuration and leave the working tree unchanged. When the code under test makes the call itself, a call-site stub intercepts it without a second process: from the run, install a replacement into the running process that matches one destination and returns the response the scenario needs or delays the real one, gated on a flag the run can flip. Installing it from the run leaves the working tree unchanged as well. It lasts only as long as the process, so re-install it after anything that restarts or reloads it. When a stub works, record its response shapes and state transitions in the Setup contract's Mock boundaries item, along with the re-install condition for a call-site stub, and the PID and port of any stub process in Owned cleanup, then carry on with the plan. Report blocked when no stub applies or the ones that do fail, naming what is missing and what was tried, then stop.
• A test needs privileged state or a second participant (an entitlement or plan tier, an elevated role, a second concurrent client or session) — provision it through a path the project already exposes for development, such as its own development-only endpoint, an administrative command, or a second client this run starts. Keep the test in the plan once provisioning succeeds, and record the granted state in the Setup contract's Test identity item and every session, role, and record this run creates in Owned cleanup. When the provisioning path writes to a shared external system, carry it through the write enumeration and approval sequence this step requires for such writes. Drop the test to unverified only after an attempt failed.