---
id: 'testing'
title: 'Testing Your Database'
description: 'Test your database schema, tables, functions, and policies.'
---

To ensure that queries return the expected data, RLS policies are correctly applied and etc., we encourage you to write automated tests. There are essentially two approaches to testing:

- Firstly, you can write tests that interface with a Supabase client instance (same way you use Supabase client in your application code) in the programming language(s) you use in your application and using your favorite testing framework.

- Secondly, you can test through the Supabase CLI, which is a more low-level approach where you write tests in SQL.

# Testing using the Supabase CLI

You can use the Supabase CLI to test your database. The minimum required version of the CLI is [v1.11.4](https://github.com/supabase/cli/releases). To get started:

- [Install the Supabase CLI](/docs/guides/cli) on your local machine

## Creating a test

Create a tests folder inside the `supabase` folder:

```bash
mkdir -p ./supabase/tests/database
```

Create a new file with the `.sql` extension which will contain the test.

```bash
touch ./supabase/tests/database/hello_world.test.sql
```

## Writing tests

All `sql` files use [pgTAP](/docs/guides/database/extensions/pgtap) as the test runner.

Let's write a simple test to check that our `auth.users` table has an ID column. Open `hello_world.test.sql` and add the following code:

```sql
begin;
select plan(1); -- only one statement to run

SELECT has_column(
    'auth',
    'users',
    'id',
    'id should exist'
);

select * from finish();
rollback;
```

## Running tests

To run the test, you can use:

```bash
supabase test db
```

This will produce the following output:

```bash
$ supabase test db
supabase/tests/database/hello_world.test.sql .. ok
All tests successful.
Files=1, Tests=1,  1 wallclock secs ( 0.01 usr  0.00 sys +  0.04 cusr  0.02 csys =  0.07 CPU)
Result: PASS
```

## More resources

- [Testing RLS policies](/docs/guides/database/extensions/pgtap#testing-rls-policies)
- [pgTAP extension](/docs/guides/database/extensions/pgtap)
- Official [pgTAP documentation](https://pgtap.org/)