Configuration Testing
Configuration testing verifies that software behaves correctly across different hardware and software configurations — different memory limits, driver versions, peripheral setups, or application config settings. It overlaps with compatibility testing but focuses more on configurable settings than on the outer environment.
Where compatibility testing asks "does this work on this browser or device," configuration testing asks "does this work with this specific setting turned on, this feature flag combination active, this environment variable set." Both matter, and both multiply quickly — the number of possible configurations grows fast as options are added.
Teams manage the combinatorial explosion the same way they do for compatibility: pairwise testing and combinatorial testing techniques let a small, deliberately chosen set of configuration combinations stand in for exhaustive coverage of every possible combination, which is rarely practical.
