Smoke Test
In plain terms
A quick check that core functionality works after a build or deploy.
Going deeper
A smoke test verifies the most critical paths run without crashing, before deeper testing. It's a fast sanity check.
Under the hood
Catches catastrophic breakages early and cheaply; not exhaustive, just 'does it turn on?'
Examples
Post-deploy health checks, build verification, critical-path checks, CI gates.
Think of it like...
Like turning on a new appliance to confirm it powers up before testing every feature.