Integration tests shouldn't rely on external infrastructure—but they also shouldn't mock everything away. In this post, we look at how to use Testcontainers in .NET to spin up real Postgres and Redis instances in your tests, how to manage container lifecycle using IAsyncLifetime, and how to structure your xUnit fixtures for speed and reliability

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Milan Jovanović

Testcontainers enables reliable .NET integration testing by spinning up real Docker containers for dependencies like PostgreSQL and Redis. Key practices include using IAsyncLifetime for container lifecycle management, implementing proper xUnit fixtures (class vs collection) based on test isolation needs, and configuring dynamic connection strings through WebApplicationFactory. The approach eliminates test pollution and provides production-like testing environments while maintaining clean separation between infrastructure setup and business logic testing.

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Share Expensive Setup with xUnit Collection Fixtures