Smoke and sanity testing are part of Athena’s initial validation checks during QA cycles. Smoke testing is used to verify the stability of the build for further testing—essentially checking whether critical features function properly after a new build. Sanity testing, on the other hand, is a focused verification of specific modules or bug fixes to ensure they work correctly before proceeding. Athena integrates these tests both manually and through automation (especially in API and UI testing) to streamline the QA process and catch major issues early, saving time and costs in later stages.