What are different characteristics of build verification test?

Build verification test is often abbreviated as BVT and can be defined as a set of tests that are carried out on all the builds that are newly built in order to verify if those builds are testable or not before they are transferred to the testing team for their further testing. 

Generally, the test cases used in build verification test are considered to be the core functionality test cases which are used to keep the stability of the software systems or applications in check and regulate their testing thoroughly. 

The whole process of build verification test takes a whole lot of efforts and time if carried out manually and therefore the whole process is usually automated. If a build fails the build verification, then the same build is again returned to the developer to fix the faults. 

There are other names also by which the build verification test is known as mentioned below:

1. Smoke testing
2. Build acceptance testing or BAT

In a typical build verification test, there are two aspects that are exclusively tested and are mentioned below:

1. Build acceptance
2. Build validation

Few basics of Build Verification Tests

1. Build verification tests are a sub set of tests that are used for the verification of the main functionalities.
2. Some build verification tests are created on a daily basis and some builds are daily tested and if those builds fail the build verification test, they are rejected and returned back to their developer for making the fixes and when the fixes have been done, a new build is released and is gain subjected to the build verification test.
3. The build verification test has an advantage that it saves the precious efforts of the testing team that are required for setting up a test and testing a build whenever there is a break in the major functionality of the build.
4. The test cases of the build verification test should be designed very carefully so that they provide the maximum possible coverage to the basic functionality of the build.
5.  A typical build verification test is run for 30 minutes maximum and not then this limit.
6. The build verification testing can also be considered as a type of regression testing that is done on each and every build that is new.

Aim of Build Verification Test

- The primary aim of the build verification test is to keep a check on the integrity of the whole software system or application in terms of its build or we can say modules.

- When several development teams are working together on the same project, it is important that the modules that they are developing individually have got good ability for integrating with each other since this is very important. 

Till now so many cases have been recorded in which the whole project failed miserably due to a lack of integration among the modules. There are some worst cases also in which the whole project gets scraped just because of the failure in the module integration. 

- The build release has got a main task i.e., file check in i.e., including all the modified as well as new project files associated with the corresponding builds. 

- Earlier checking the health of the building initially was considered to be the main task of the build verification test. 

- This is called as “initial build health check” and it includes:

1. Whether or not all the files have been included in the release or not?
2. Whether all the files are in their proper format or not?
3. Whether all the file versions and languages have been included or not?
4. Whether the appropriate flags have been associated with the file or not?