# State Testing

Executing a Salt state run can potentially change many aspects of a system and it may be desirable to first see what a state run is going to change before applying the run.

Salt has a test interface to report on exactly what will be changed, this interface can be invoked on any of the major state run functions:

    salt '*' state.apply test=True
    salt '*' state.apply mysls test=True
    salt '*' state.single test=True

The test run is mandated by adding the `test=True` option to the states. The return information will show states that will be applied in yellow and the result is reported as `None`.

## Default Test

If the value `test` is set to `True` in the minion configuration file then states will default to being executed in test mode. If this value is set then states can still be run by calling test=False:

    salt '*' state.apply test=False
    salt '*' state.apply mysls test=False
    salt '*' state.single test=False