Getting maximum mileage from a minimal number of tests - Andrew Poole - NDC London 2026

A conference talk presenting a testing strategy called 'end-to-end component tests' for .NET distributed systems. The approach treats multiple executables as a single testable unit, mocking only external dependencies while running everything else in-memory. Using ASP.NET Core's WebApplicationFactory, a fake Azure Service Bus, in-memory repositories, and .NET 8's FakeTimeProvider, the speaker demonstrates testing a complex 4-phase async workflow (HTTP API, event listeners, outbox processor) in a single 45-line test that runs in ~1.6 seconds. The talk covers the test fixture structure, testable service bus processors, time manipulation for async flows, and tradeoffs versus traditional unit testing.