How to build a smoke test suite?

Pick a small set of flows that must work before any deeper testing - app loads, login, core navigation, and one revenue- or data-critical action. The suite should finish in minutes, not hours, so it can run on every build without blocking the team. Keep cases independent: a failure should point to one broken area, not a chain of unclear dependencies. Use stable test accounts and predictable data so results are comparable run to run. Name the suite clearly (for example “smoke”) and document who owns it. Review it each release: add paths when new critical features ship, remove steps that duplicate coverage already guaranteed elsewhere. A smoke suite is a gate, not a full regression replacement.