Module 2 · Manual testing, end to end Lesson 6 of 15
Regression, smoke and exploratory testing
Smoke testing answers "is this build worth testing at all"; regression answers "did we break anything that used to work"; exploratory testing is a timed, purposeful hunt for what nobody thought to specify.
The concept
Smoke testing is the short pass over the critical paths after a build — login, search, apply, pay — to decide whether it is worth testing properly at all. Regression testing is re-running the cases that matter after a change, because the change touched more than its author thought.
Exploratory testing is the opposite of a script: you take a charter — "breach the job-search filters for twenty minutes" — and follow what looks strange, with no expected result written down. It finds the bugs no script does, because it reacts to what the software actually does.
Smoke: a quick set after EVERY build - login, main screen, main action.
Regression: the full suite that must still pass after any change.
Exploratory: unscripted time to find what the written cases did not think of.
Rule: automate the smoke and the regression; keep 30-60 min per sprint
for exploratory.Common mistakes
The mistake is re-testing everything after every small change, which is slow and gets skipped under pressure, and then testing nothing. Agree what the change touched, run the smoke set always, and let a risk conversation decide the rest. This is also what automation is for — the repetitive part, not the exploratory part.
Worked example
Running the full 400-case regression suite on every build is how teams stall. Tagging thirty cases as the smoke set is how they ship — knowing which thirty is the job.
Your practice task
Pick thirty cases from your sheet to be the smoke set, then run a 30-minute exploratory session on a website and write up what you found.
Do this before moving on. Reading a solution teaches the shape of it; typing it teaches you.
Key takeaway
Smoke testing is the short pass over the critical paths after a build — login, search, apply, pay — to decide whether it is worth testing properly at all.
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