Some of the most important advances in the field of software development over the last decade have involved an increased reliance on automated techniques to test code code. While the concept of automated testing isn't new, systems are growing larger and more complicated—so these techniques are fast becoming the skill that separates novice programmers from professionals.

In this chapter, we will go over some of the techniques and patterns that can be used with ServiceStack to help you write maintainable web services. The patterns will help you write unit and integration tests as well as figure out how you might use these in local development with a continuous integration server such as TeamCity.

Many software developers subscribe to the theory of a Testing pyramid. The idea is that unit tests form the base of the pyramid—there should be more of them than any other kind of test. Integration tests form the middle, and functional tests form the top:

Let's discuss the ideas behind the...