TestKitchen

TestKitchen is a tool used by developers and system administrators for testing infrastructure code. It bridges the gap between writing code that defines infrastructure and actually deploying and verifying that infrastructure. TestKitchen supports a wide range of testing methodologies, including unit testing, integration testing, and convergence testing. It allows users to automate the process of spinning up temporary instances, running tests against them, and then tearing them down. This ephemeral nature of instances ensures a clean testing environment for each run.

The core functionality of TestKitchen involves drivers and platforms. Drivers are responsible for interacting with the underlying infrastructure where test instances will be created, such as cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP), virtualization platforms (VMware, VirtualBox), or containerization tools (Docker). Platforms define the operating system and configuration of the test instances. TestKitchen orchestrates the creation of these instances based on the configured drivers and platforms, runs test suites against them, and then cleans up the resources.

TestKitchen integrates seamlessly with various testing frameworks and tools, such as InSpec for compliance and security testing, and Serverspec for server validation. It is commonly used with configuration management tools like Chef, Puppet, and Ansible, enabling users to test their infrastructure code changes before deploying them to production environments. By providing a consistent and automated testing workflow, TestKitchen helps improve the reliability and stability of infrastructure deployments.