Make sure you are on Node v10.x.

# Install Dependencies and Compile
yarn --cwd test/smoke

# Dev
yarn smoketest

# Build
yarn smoketest --build PATH_TO_NEW_BUILD_PARENT_FOLDER --stable-build PATH_TO_LAST_STABLE_BUILD_PARENT_FOLDER

# Remote
yarn smoketest --build PATH_TO_NEW_BUILD_PARENT_FOLDER --remote

You must always run the smoketest version which matches the release you are testing. So, if you want to run the smoketest for a release build (e.g. release/1.22), you need that version of the smoke tests too:

git checkout release/1.22
yarn --cwd test/smoke

In addition to the new build to be released you will need the previous stable build so that the smoketest can test the data migration. The recommended way to make these builds available for the smoketest is by downloading their archive version (*.zip) and extracting them into two folders. Pass the folder paths to the smoketest as follows:

yarn smoketest --build PATH_TO_NEW_RELEASE_PARENT_FOLDER --stable-build PATH_TO_LAST_STABLE_RELEASE_PARENT_FOLDER

• --verbose logs all the low level driver calls made to Code;
• -f PATTERN filters the tests to be run. You can also use pretty much any mocha argument;
• --screenshots SCREENSHOT_DIR captures screenshots when tests fail.

cd test/smoke
yarn watch

• Beware of workbench state. The tests within a single suite will share the same state.

• Beware of singletons. This evil can, and will, manifest itself under the form of FS paths, TCP ports, IPC handles. Whenever writing a test, or setting up more smoke test architecture, make sure it can run simultaneously with any other tests and even itself. All test suites should be able to run many times in parallel.

• Beware of focus. Never depend on DOM elements having focus using .focused classes or :focus pseudo-classes, since they will lose that state as soon as another window appears on top of the running VS Code window. A safe approach which avoids this problem is to use the waitForActiveElement API. Many tests use this whenever they need to wait for a specific element to have focus.

• Beware of timing. You need to read from or write to the DOM... but is it the right time to do that? Can you 100% guarantee that input box will be visible at that point in time? Or are you just hoping that it will be so? Hope is your worst enemy in UI tests. Example: just because you triggered Quick Open with F1, it doesn't mean that it's open and you can just start typing; you must first wait for the input element to be in the DOM as well as be the current active element.

• Beware of waiting. Never wait longer than a couple of seconds for anything, unless it's justified. Think of it as a human using Code. Would a human take 10 minutes to run through the Search viewlet smoke test? Then, the computer should even be faster. Don't use setTimeout just because. Think about what you should wait for in the DOM to be ready and wait for that instead.