Christian Ulson

Christian Ulson

25+ years building software & tools

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Christian Ulson•

6d ago

Built an in-memory SQL engine to speed up repository tests

I kept running into the same issue when testing repository layers that rely heavily on SQL.

Integration tests with a real database are essential, but they slow feedback cycles and add infrastructure complexity. Mocks don t catch real SQL issues, and SQLite often introduces dialect differences that require adaptation.

So I built an open-source in-memory SQL engine for .NET to validate SQL behavior during unit tests.

It plugs into IDbConnection, allowing repositories (Dapper or raw SQL) to run unchanged while keeping tests fast and deterministic.