Concepts

Everything in SmoothDeploy lives inside an organization. An organization has members, projects, and shared resources such as secrets, tags, config presets, API keys and email inboxes.

Projects and branches

A project groups related tests. Every project has a default branch, and you can add more. A branch is a separate copy of the project's tests, so you can edit tests for a feature branch of your app without touching the tests on the default branch.

See Projects and Branches.

Tests, steps and revisions

A test is an ordered list of steps. Each step is one action: open a page, click, fill a field, assert text, and so on. A step can also be a group that holds child steps. Tests can be nested in directories for organization.

Every save creates a revision. The working revision is what you edit; snapshots keep earlier versions you can view or restore. Tests also carry per-test parameters (inputs) and variables (values captured during the run).

Shared steps are groups promoted to the organization level so many tests can reuse them. Editing a shared step changes it everywhere it is used.

See Tests, Steps, Shared Steps, Revisions, Parameters and Variables.

Runs

A test run executes a test, locally in the desktop app or remotely on SmoothDeploy's runners. A run records status, duration, screenshots, trace and the Playwright report. Runs can be started by hand, from the API, or by a schedule that triggers on a cron expression or at a fixed time.

Config presets are named Playwright configurations (browser, viewport, retries, and so on) you can apply to any run.

See Run Remotely, View Results, Schedules and Config Presets.

Organization resources

• Members have a role: member, admin or owner. See Roles and Permissions.
• Secrets hold passwords and tokens that steps reference by name. The console never shows a value after it is saved. See Secrets.
• Tags label tests for filtering and for tag-based schedules. See Tags.
• API keys give scripts and agents scoped access without a user session. See API Keys and API Reference.
• Email inboxes are managed addresses a test can read during a run, for OTP and verification flows. See Email Inboxes.
• Webhooks notify your systems when runs finish. See Webhooks.