Register trainee teachers - Smoke Tests

Overview

Login smoke testing is defined in spec/smoke/login_spec.rb. This document provides guidance on running the smoke tests on external environments, such as staging or production.

The test technically runs against all environments but exits immediately unless dfe-sign-in is enabled for that environment:

before do
  skip "DfE sign-in not enabled" unless Settings.features.sign_in_method == "dfe-sign-in"
end

Password Changes

If DfE Sign-in (DSI) has forced a password change and smoke tests are failing, follow these steps:

Retrieve the existing password for smoke testing from @d-a-v-e or via the environment variables in staging. Look for SMOKE_TEST_PASSWORD. Refer to the Makefile for guidance on printing app secrets for the staging environment.
Reset the password for both staging and production by logging in as usual and following the instructions for resetting or requesting a password reset.
Update the smoke test password for GitHub Actions in SMOKE_TEST_PASSWORD.
If a verification code is required for the password update, note that all emails sent to Register.SmokeTesting@education.gov.uk are forwarded to the twd-register-devs@education.gov.uk mailing list.
Ensure the SMOKE_TEST_PASSWORD is updated in the production environment for safe keeping. Consult the Makefile for guidance on this.

Basic Auth Changes

The staging app uses basic auth, and therefore, the basic auth username and password credentials must also be stored in GitHub Actions for smoke testing to run successfully. If either the username or password changes, the GitHub Actions credentials must be updated:

Update the credentials for both BASIC_AUTH_PASSWORD and BASIC_AUTH_USERNAME.
Update these values in the staging environment using the edit-app-secrets action.