akka-net-testing-patterns

1# Akka.NET Testing Patterns
2 
3## When to Use This Skill
4 
5Use this skill when:
6- Writing unit tests for Akka.NET actors
7- Testing persistent actors with event sourcing
8- Verifying actor interactions and message flows
9- Testing actor supervision and lifecycle
10- Mocking external dependencies in actor tests
11- Testing cluster sharding behavior locally
12- Verifying actor state recovery and persistence
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14## Reference Files
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16- [examples.md](examples.md): Complete code samples for all testing patterns (Patterns 1-8 plus Reminders)
17- [anti-patterns-and-reference.md](anti-patterns-and-reference.md): Anti-patterns, traditional TestKit, CI/CD integration
18 
19## Choosing Your Testing Approach
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21### Use Akka.Hosting.TestKit (Recommended for 95% of Use Cases)
22 
23**When:**
24- Building modern .NET applications with `Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection`
25- Using Akka.Hosting for actor configuration in production
26- Need to inject services into actors (`IOptions`, `DbContext`, `ILogger`, HTTP clients, etc.)
27- Testing applications that use ASP.NET Core, Worker Services, or .NET Aspire
28- Working with modern Akka.NET projects (Akka.NET v1.5+)
29 
30**Advantages:**
31- Native dependency injection support - override services with fakes in tests
32- Configuration parity with production (same extension methods work in tests)
33- Clean separation between actor logic and infrastructure
34- Type-safe actor registry for retrieving actors
35 
36### Use Traditional Akka.TestKit
37 
38**When:**
39…