Testing Laravel Applications with Pest: A Practical Guide

Testing doesn't have to be painful. Pest PHP brings an elegant, expressive syntax to testing in Laravel that makes writing tests feel natural and enjoyable.

Why Pest?

Pest eliminates the boilerplate of PHPUnit while maintaining full compatibility. Its it() and test() functions create readable, maintainable test suites that serve as living documentation.

Testing Livewire Components

Livewire's testing utilities integrate perfectly with Pest. Test component rendering, user interactions, data binding, and redirects with a clean, fluent API.

API Testing Patterns

Test your API endpoints with getJson(), postJson(), and friends. Assert response structures, status codes, and database state changes in a single expressive chain.

Factories and Seeders

Use model factories to create test data efficiently. Create specific factory states for different scenarios and use the recycle() method to share models across related factories.