# Configuration management - How to start testing your salt formulas

DevFeed: [Configuration management - How to start testing your salt formulas](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/configuration-management-how-to-start-testing-your-salt-formulas-27949.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://tech.trivago.com/post/2016-10-12-configuration-management-start-testing-saltstack/>)

Author: Marc Siebeneicher Follow

Published: 2016-10-12T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Trivago](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/trivago.md>)

Topics: [configuration-management](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/configuration-management.md>), [saltstack](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/saltstack.md>), [Testing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/testing.md>), [test](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/test.md>), [Provisioning](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/provisioning.md>), [YAML](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/yaml.md>), [pull-requests](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/pull-requests.md>)

Tags: [also](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/also.md>), [backend](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/backend.md>), [configuration-management](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/configuration-management.md>), [devops](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/devops.md>), [how-to](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/how-to.md>), [infrastructure](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/infrastructure.md>), [provisioning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/provisioning.md>), [pull-requests](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pull-requests.md>), [salt](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/salt.md>), [testing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/testing.md>), [yaml](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/yaml.md>)

## AI overview

This tutorial explains why trivago began testing SaltStack formulas as its configuration repository grew in complexity. It describes common problems, including YAML syntax errors, incorrect conditions, template issues, networking problems, state-order issues, and logical changes, and motivates automated testing for pull requests.

## Source excerpt

Configuration management tools have recently gained a lot of popularity. At trivago we use SaltStack to automate our infrastructure. As the complexity of configuration files and formulas is increasing, we need a fast, reliable way to test our changes.