Why We Write Tests: Unit, Integration, Contract, E2E, Smoke and Other Test Types
The real return on tests is confidence against regressions, speed of change and living documentation; the price is writing, maintenance, duration and flakiness. We separate test types by scope (unit, component, integration, contract, E2E) and by purpose (smoke, regression, acceptance, exploratory), and show with six real Bookstore tests and measured durations that Google's small/medium/large classification is independent of scope.
8 Nov 2026
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12 min
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7
