devtest

Devtest, short for development testing, refers to a set of practices in software development where developers verify the behavior of newly written code before it moves on to formal QA testing. Devtesting emphasizes rapid feedback, early defect detection, and validation of small units or components as they are integrated.

Practice includes unit tests, integration tests, and sometimes exploratory checks carried out in local development environments. Tests are often automated using frameworks such as JUnit, pytest, or similar, and run as part of the development workflow or continuous integration pipelines. Developers may employ test doubles and mocks to isolate dependencies and focus on the unit under test. Test-driven development and pair programming are common approaches to encourage testable design.

Devtest complements but does not replace QA testing or user acceptance testing. It can reduce risk and cost by catching issues early, but some defects only appear under real-world usage, performance, or long-term reliability tests. Because devtesting relies on the developer's perspective, it should be complemented with broader test planning, code reviews, static analysis, and test environments that resemble production.

In DevOps contexts, dev tests are typically executed on every commit or pull request and may gate deployment in CI/CD pipelines, helping to ensure that code changes meet basic quality criteria before broader testing and release stages.