---
title: Run your tests using Go test
linkTitle: Run your tests
weight: 30
keywords: build, go, golang, test
description: How to build and run your Go tests in a container
aliases:
  - /get-started/golang/run-tests/
  - /language/golang/run-tests/
  - /guides/language/golang/run-tests/
---

## Prerequisites

Complete the [Build your Go image](build-images.md) section of this guide.

## Overview

Testing is an essential part of modern software development. Testing can mean a
lot of things to different development teams. There are unit tests, integration
tests and end-to-end testing. In this guide you take a look at running your unit
tests in Docker when building.

For this section, use the `docker-gs-ping` project that you cloned in [Build
your Go image](build-images.md).

## Run tests when building

To run your tests when building, you need to add a test stage to the
`Dockerfile.multistage`. The `Dockerfile.multistage` in the sample application's
repository already has the following content:

```dockerfile {hl_lines="15-17"}
# syntax=docker/dockerfile:1

# Build the application from source
FROM golang:1.19 AS build-stage

WORKDIR /app

COPY go.mod go.sum ./
RUN go mod download

COPY *.go ./

RUN CGO_ENABLED=0 GOOS=linux go build -o /docker-gs-ping

# Run the tests in the container
FROM build-stage AS run-test-stage
RUN go test -v ./...

# Deploy the application binary into a lean image
FROM gcr.io/distroless/base-debian11 AS build-release-stage

WORKDIR /

COPY --from=build-stage /docker-gs-ping /docker-gs-ping

EXPOSE 8080

USER nonroot:nonroot

ENTRYPOINT ["/docker-gs-ping"]
```

Run the following command to build an image using the `run-test-stage` stage as the target and view the test results. Include `--progress plain` to view the build output, `--no-cache` to ensure the tests always run, and `--target run-test-stage` to target the test stage.

```console
$ docker build -f Dockerfile.multistage -t docker-gs-ping-test --progress plain --no-cache --target run-test-stage .
```

You should see output containing the following.

```text
#13 [run-test-stage 1/1] RUN go test -v ./...
#13 4.915 === RUN   TestIntMinBasic
#13 4.915 --- PASS: TestIntMinBasic (0.00s)
#13 4.915 === RUN   TestIntMinTableDriven
#13 4.915 === RUN   TestIntMinTableDriven/0,1
#13 4.915 === RUN   TestIntMinTableDriven/1,0
#13 4.915 === RUN   TestIntMinTableDriven/2,-2
#13 4.915 === RUN   TestIntMinTableDriven/0,-1
#13 4.915 === RUN   TestIntMinTableDriven/-1,0
#13 4.915 --- PASS: TestIntMinTableDriven (0.00s)
#13 4.915     --- PASS: TestIntMinTableDriven/0,1 (0.00s)
#13 4.915     --- PASS: TestIntMinTableDriven/1,0 (0.00s)
#13 4.915     --- PASS: TestIntMinTableDriven/2,-2 (0.00s)
#13 4.915     --- PASS: TestIntMinTableDriven/0,-1 (0.00s)
#13 4.915     --- PASS: TestIntMinTableDriven/-1,0 (0.00s)
#13 4.915 PASS
```

## Next steps

In this section, you learned how to run tests when building your image. Next,
you’ll learn how to set up a CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions.