The fundamental purpose of software testing is to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of a software product or service to verify that it works as we expect it to. [^wk1] [^wk1]: [Software testing (wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_testing#cite_note-Kaner_1-1) But in order to deliver on this primary objective, a test suite needs to be efficient and sustainable within the working context of the stakeholders and that is why the vast majority of tests in an effective test suite are fully automated. What's more, this suite needs to enable a fast [[Feedback loop]] so that the test results can be quickly acted upon by the most relevant stakeholders. Therefore, we can state the 3 core objectives of an effective automated test suite as follows: - [[An effective automated test suite should provide confidence that the system behaves as expected]] - [[An effective automated test suite should deliver feedback that is fast, accurate and reliable]] - [[An effective automated test suite should make maintenance easier]]