I have a test project that I want to automate on a test server. For now, I have installed the Visual Studio agents (Test Controller, Test Agent and Test Lab) on my local machine, as I hope to try it out here before touching anything on the test server.
The problem I’m having is that I can’t find adequate documentation on automating tests using the Visual Studio agent tools. I have successfully set up and configured the test agent and test controller on my local machine, but I’m not sure where I go from here. The test controller is connected to Team Foundation Server. I have a test project contained within TFS – I want to run the tests within it.
I tried launching the VS test manager and attempted to find a way to run tests from there, but I was unsuccessful.
How do I go about doing this? (in simple steps)
My previous experience is with NUnit, and launching automated tests was as simple is launching the command line NUnit program, providing it with the path of the test project and a few other parameters.
Once the Visual Studio agents are set up and configured correctly, it’s simply a matter of running tests against a .testsettings file which is connected to the test controller.
When the tests are run (either via the Visual Studio GUI or the mstest.exe command-line program), the active testsettings file will run the tests on any test agent which is connected to the test controller.
So in terms of automating tests, it’s just a matter of specifying the correct testsettings file as one of the command-line switches to the MSTest.exe.
A testsetting file can either be created within the Visual Studio solution or alternatively they can be created within Microsoft Test Manager (automated tests can also be scheduled using the MS Test Manager command-line program, tcm.exe).
To select an active testsetting file to use when running tests from Visual Studio 2010, select the ‘Test’ menu on the toolbar, then ‘Select Active Test Settings’.