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# Testing Apps

In general apps can be tested like other Django apps. In most cases you'll want to run your automated tests via the `nautobot-server test <app_module>` command or, if using the `coverage` Python library, `coverage run --module nautobot.core.cli test <app_module>`.

## Factories

The `TEST_USE_FACTORIES` setting defaults to `False` when testing apps, primarily for backwards-compatibility reasons. It can prove a useful way of populating a baseline of Nautobot database data for your tests and save you the trouble of creating a large amount of baseline data yourself. We recommend adding `factory-boy` to your app's development dependencies and settings `TEST_USE_FACTORIES = True` in your app's development/test `nautobot_config.py` to take advantage of this.