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xUnit Testing Tutorial: Environment Setup For Selenium Testing

xUnit is a popular open-source testing framework created by the developers of NUnit. Learn how to set up xUnit with visual studio or by package manager commands.

Author

Himanshu Sheth

Author

Last Updated on: December 9, 2025

xUnit.net (also referred to as xUnit) framework is a popular open-source unit testing framework for the .Net platform. The framework is built with a community focus. Since there is a focus on the community, it is easier to expand upon than other popular Selenium testing frameworks.

As xUnit is written by the creators of the NUnit framework, you would find a lot of similarities between the two frameworks. The intention of creating a new unit testing framework was to build a much better framework from ground-up.

Unlike other popular frameworks for automation testing with Selenium C#, like NUnit and MSTest, this test framework follows a more unique style of attributes/annotations.

The xUnit framework has fewer attributes in comparison to the NUnit and MSTest frameworks. The other advantage of using xUnit is that the Selenium test automation framework creates a new instance of a test class for every test. At the time of writing this blog, the latest version of xUnit was 2.4.1.

In this xUnit testing tutorial, I’ll take a detailed look at setting up the xUnit framework (or xUnit setup example) which can help you get started with xUnit (or xUnit.net) on Visual Studio.

Overview

To set up xUnit for Selenium testing in C#, configure Visual Studio 2019 to run automated web tests across browsers. This setup uses the xUnit framework to isolate tests by creating a new instance of the test class for every test, ensuring clean execution and seamless integration with Visual Studio Test Explorer.

Why It Matters

  • Best framework for community-focused testing: xunit - An open-source testing framework for the .NET platform that uses fewer attributes than NUnit or MSTest and instantiates a new test class for every test.
  • Best attribute for isolated execution: [Fact] - A default attribute used in xUnit testing to ensure that individual Selenium tests run in isolation for cleaner code and better debugging.

How to Set Up xUnit and Selenium in Visual Studio

  • Best IDE for C# development: Visual Studio 2019 - Provides the development environment for C# automation testing, requiring a user sign-in for the Community Edition to continue usage after the 30-day trial.
  • Best project template for test isolation: xUnit Test Project (.NET Core) - A Visual Studio project template that automatically includes the default xUnit package and a template file containing the [Fact] attribute.
  • Best runner for Visual Studio integration: xunit.runner.visualstudio - The mandatory test runner required to ensure proper test discovery and full compatibility with the Visual Studio Test Explorer.
  • Best package for test SDK integration: Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk - One of the mandatory NuGet packages required alongside xunit and its runner to enable Selenium automation testing in Visual Studio.

Setting Up Visual Studio For Development And Testing

For development, I’ll use the Visual Studio 2019 (VS 2019) IDE. Before looking into the xUnit setup example, I’ll take a brief look at setting up Visual Studio for automation testing with Selenium C#.

Step 1: The latest version of Visual Studio 2019 can be downloaded from here. You can choose from the Community/Professional/Enterprise versions. In this xUnit testing tutorial, I have used the Community Edition of Visual Studio 2019.

visual-studio-2019

Step 2:In this xUnit testing tutorial, the xUnit test framework will be used along with Selenium for test automation. Hence, I’ll install the necessary packages that aid in automation testing with Selenium C# on the Windows platform.

Launch the Visual Studio:visual-studio-setup

Install the necessary packages:

visual-studio-installationStep 3: In case you are also installing the Community Edition of Visual Studio, it is important that you sign-in to the IDE else you would not be able to use the IDE after the trial period (approximately 30 days). Once you sign-in, you can also utilize other powerful features such as pushing source code to private Git, syncing Visual Studio settings, and more.

In the next section of the xUnit testing tutorial, I’ll take a look at the steps to install the mandatory packages for performing automation testing with Selenium C# using xUnit framework.

Selenium C# Tutorial: Setting Up Selenium In Visual Studio

This xUnit Tutorial for beginners and professionals will help you learn how to use xUnit framework with Selenium C# for performing Selenium automation testing.

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Installing The xUnit Framework & xUnit.net Runner

For executing tests that make use of the xUnit framework, you’ll have to install the corresponding test runner i.e. xUnit.net runner. Installation of the xUnit framework and its runner can be done by installing the packages using the package manager from GUI or executing the equivalent package manager (PM) commands on the terminal.

For this xUnit testing tutorial, I’ll explore both these options for installing the xUnit framework. Before the installation of the required packages, you’ll have to perform the following steps:

Step 1: Create a new project of the type ‘xUnit Test Project (.Net Core)’ in Visual Studio.create-new-project

Step 2: Since I have created the project based on the xUnit.net framework, the default .cs file contains the [Fact] attribute in it. Also, the xUnit package is also included by default in the source code.

csharp-tutorial

In case you have not created a project of the type mentioned above, you can still use the xUnit framework for performing automation testing with Selenium C#. The xUnit framework and the runner can be installed using the package manager from GUI or the terminal.

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Using Visual Studio IDE

For installing the xUnit test framework and other required packages for performing Selenium test automation with xUnit, perform the following steps:

Step 1: Go to Tools -> NuGet Package Manager -> Manager NuGet Packages for Solution for opening NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio.

xunit testing tutorial

Step 2: Search for the following packages in the Browse tab and click Install

  • xunit
  • xunit.runner.visualstudio
  • Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk
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Using Package Manager (PM) Commands

If you are comfortable using the terminal, then you should look at the option of installing the xUnit framework using the Package Manager (PM) commands.

Step 1: For executing commands from the PM console, navigate to Tools -> NuGet Package Manager -> Package Manager Console.

Using Package Manager

Step 2: For installation of the xUnit packages, we use Install-Package command with the required as the argument to the command.

Install-Package xunit
Install-Package xunit.runner.visualstudio
Install-Package Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk

Shown below are the package installation snapshots:

package installation snapshotsxunit-tutorials

Step 3: To check whether the packages have been installed successfully, execute the Get-Package command on the PM console. Shown below is the execution output:

PM> Get-Package
 
Id                                  Versions
--                                  --------
xunit                               {2.4.1}
xunit.runner.visualstudio           {2.4.1}
Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk              {16.2.0}

Also Read: NUnit Test Automation Using Selenium C#

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Wrapping It Up!

With this crisp xUnit setup example for Selenium test automation, I demonstrated how to get started with the xUnit (or xUnit.net) framework for Visual Studio. Steps shown in the xUnit testing tutorial will be instrumental in performing automation testing with Selenium C# frameworks.

This brings us to the conclusion of this article. You can go ahead and set up the xUnit environment for yourself. We’d have covered a lot of articles before on automation testing with Selenium C#. Feel free to check them out, and do help us to reach out to more people by sharing and retweeting our article. That’s all folks. Happy Testing!!!?

Author

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Himanshu Sheth

Blogs: 130

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Himanshu Sheth is the Director of Marketing (Technical Content) at TestMu AI, with over 8 years of hands-on experience in Selenium, Cypress, and other test automation frameworks. He has authored more than 130 technical blogs for TestMu AI, covering software testing, automation strategy, and CI/CD. At TestMu AI, he leads the technical content efforts across blogs, YouTube, and social media, while closely collaborating with contributors to enhance content quality and product feedback loops. He has done his graduation with a B.E. in Computer Engineering from Mumbai University. Before TestMu AI, Himanshu led engineering teams in embedded software domains at companies like Samsung Research, Motorola, and NXP Semiconductors. He is a core member of DZone and has been a speaker at several unconferences focused on technical writing and software quality.

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