Test Types on MinimumCD Practice Guide

Component Tests

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

Verification of a coherent structural unit (such as an entire microservice, UI component, or self-contained subsystem) against its specific contract and internal logic, while keeping interactions beyond that component’s boundary mocked or stubbed.

Contract Tests

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

Verification that two separate systems (such as an API provider and its consumers, or a message publisher and subscriber) adhere to a shared, agreed-upon formal specification, the “contract”, without requiring both services to run simultaneously in an integrated environment.

End-to-End Tests

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

Verification of a complete end-to-end user or business transaction through the entire deployed application stack, matching the perspective and experience of an actual user or external consumer.

Integration Tests

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

Verification that two or more distinct architectural subsystems or external dependencies interact correctly across their transport layer and data boundaries.

Scope & Boundaries

Broader than a component test because it explicitly validates communication with real external systems (such as a database, message queue, cache, or filesystem), but narrower than a full end-to-end test because it targets a specific integration boundary rather than complete multi-service user workflows.

Core Characteristics

Detects driver/dialect mismatches, schema serialization issues, connection pooling misconfigurations, and ORM/SQL query errors that mock-heavy tests overlook.

Static Analysis

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

Static analysis (also called static testing) evaluates non-running code against rules for known good practices, inspecting source, configuration, and dependency manifests to catch errors, complexity, and security issues before the code ever runs.

Scope & Boundaries

Analysis runs against source code, configuration files, and dependency manifests at rest - no application starts and no test doubles are needed. Scope is the entire codebase, not a single unit, component, or transaction.

Characteristics

Seconds-scale execution (the fastest test category), fully deterministic, and codebase-wide scope, with no external dependencies except the network calls a dependency scanner makes to a vulnerability database.

Smoke Tests

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

A lightweight, automated verification run executed immediately after code is deployed to a live target environment (staging, pre-production, or production) to verify that the environment is healthy, operational, and capable of handling traffic before fully shifting user load.

Scope & Boundaries

Strictly limited to high-level system vitality. It checks that critical infrastructure components (processes, routing, database connectivity, secret access, core endpoints) are alive and reachable. It explicitly avoids deep workflow testing, exhaustive edge-case permutations, or long-running operational flows.

Unit Tests

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition

Verification of the smallest testable piece of code—typically a single function, method, or class—in complete isolation from the rest of the application, network, file system, or external services. Test doubles are used where needed.