# Why Testing Matters for Studio Development

https://www.sanity.io/learn/course/testing-sanity-studio/why-testing-matters-for-studio-development.md

Testing isn't just quality assurance—it's strategic infrastructure that protects your business logic and enables rapid iteration. Understand how tests document requirements in executable code, provide confidence before changes reach content editors, and free your team to move faster. Learn what makes Studio customizations worth testing and how to think about testing as an investment in long-term velocity.

This course takes an incremental approach to writing tests, starting with validation and access control logic, then progressing to more complex React components that interact with Studio's APIs. This building-block approach helps you establish a solid foundation of test coverage that grows with your Studio's complexity.

## What you'll build

By the end of this course, you'll have a complete test suite for a real Sanity Studio that manages events, artists, and venues. You'll test:

* **Validation and access control logic** - Permission checks and business rules
* **Validation logic** - Custom schema validation rules
* **React components** - Custom input components with Sanity hooks
* **Integration workflows** - CI/CD pipelines that run tests automatically

Upon completing this course, you'll be able to:

* Set up Vitest in a Sanity Studio project
* Write tests for validation and access control functions
* Test async validation functions with mocked clients
* Create reusable test fixtures for consistent mocking
* Test React components that use Sanity UI and Studio APIs
* Implement automated testing in GitHub Actions
* Make strategic decisions about what to test and when

## The strategic case for testing

Testing is an investment. It takes time to write tests, configure testing tools, and maintain test suites. But this upfront investment pays dividends:

**For solo developers:**

* Catch bugs before they reach production
* Refactor with confidence
* Document your intent for future you

**For teams:**

* Enable multiple developers to work simultaneously without breaking each other's code
* Onboard new team members faster with executable documentation
* Review pull requests more efficiently when tests verify behavior

**For AI-assisted development:**

* Tests provide clear specifications of expected behavior
* AI agents can understand your business logic through test descriptions
* Automated refactoring becomes safer when tests guard against regressions

When code becomes commodity through AI assistance, your specifications—documented in tests—become your competitive advantage.