diff --git a/test-requirements.txt b/test-requirements.txt
index 47cd8bec7..94ee2bb0c 100644
--- a/test-requirements.txt
+++ b/test-requirements.txt
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+argparse
 hacking>=0.5.6,<0.8
 coverage>=3.6
 discover
@@ -9,3 +10,4 @@ testscenarios
 testtools
 testrepository
 sphinxcontrib-programoutput
+mock
diff --git a/tests/cmd/__init__.py b/tests/cmd/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e69de29bb
diff --git a/tests/cmd/fixtures/cmd-001.xml b/tests/cmd/fixtures/cmd-001.xml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..7c5684b28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/cmd/fixtures/cmd-001.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+<project>
+  <actions/>
+  <description>a simple job&lt;!-- Managed by Jenkins Job Builder --&gt;</description>
+  <keepDependencies>false</keepDependencies>
+  <blockBuildWhenDownstreamBuilding>false</blockBuildWhenDownstreamBuilding>
+  <blockBuildWhenUpstreamBuilding>false</blockBuildWhenUpstreamBuilding>
+  <concurrentBuild>false</concurrentBuild>
+  <canRoam>true</canRoam>
+  <properties/>
+  <scm class="hudson.scm.NullSCM"/>
+  <builders/>
+  <publishers/>
+  <buildWrappers/>
+</project>
diff --git a/tests/cmd/fixtures/cmd-001.yaml b/tests/cmd/fixtures/cmd-001.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..7ccb24775
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/cmd/fixtures/cmd-001.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+- job-template:
+    name: 'foo-job'
+    description: 'a simple job'
+
+- project:
+    name: foo-project
+    jobs:
+      - foo-job:
diff --git a/tests/cmd/test_cmd.py b/tests/cmd/test_cmd.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..c3ee20459
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/cmd/test_cmd.py
@@ -0,0 +1,85 @@
+import os
+import ConfigParser
+import cStringIO
+import codecs
+import mock
+import testtools
+from jenkins_jobs import cmd
+
+
+# Testing the cmd module can sometimes result in the CacheStorage class
+# attempting to create the cache directory multiple times as the tests
+# are run in parallel.  Stub out the CacheStorage to ensure that each
+# test can safely create the cache directory without risk of interference.
+@mock.patch('jenkins_jobs.builder.CacheStorage', mock.MagicMock)
+class CmdTests(testtools.TestCase):
+
+    fixtures_path = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'fixtures')
+    parser = cmd.create_parser()
+
+    def test_with_empty_args(self):
+        """
+        User passes no args, should fail with SystemExit
+        """
+        with mock.patch('sys.stderr'):
+            self.assertRaises(SystemExit, self.parser.parse_args, [])
+
+    def test_non_existing_config_dir(self):
+        """
+        Run test mode and pass a non-existing configuration directory
+        """
+        args = self.parser.parse_args(['test', 'foo'])
+        config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
+        config.readfp(cStringIO.StringIO(cmd.DEFAULT_CONF))
+        self.assertRaises(IOError, cmd.execute, args, config)
+
+    def test_non_existing_config_file(self):
+        """
+        Run test mode and pass a non-existing configuration file
+        """
+        args = self.parser.parse_args(['test', 'non-existing.yaml'])
+        config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
+        config.readfp(cStringIO.StringIO(cmd.DEFAULT_CONF))
+        self.assertRaises(IOError, cmd.execute, args, config)
+
+    def test_non_existing_job(self):
+        """
+        Run test mode and pass a non-existing job name
+        (probably better to fail here)
+        """
+        args = self.parser.parse_args(['test',
+                                       os.path.join(self.fixtures_path,
+                                                    'cmd-001.yaml'),
+                                       'invalid'])
+        args.output_dir = mock.MagicMock()
+        config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
+        config.readfp(cStringIO.StringIO(cmd.DEFAULT_CONF))
+        cmd.execute(args, config)   # probably better to fail here
+
+    def test_valid_job(self):
+        """
+        Run test mode and pass a valid job name
+        """
+        args = self.parser.parse_args(['test',
+                                       os.path.join(self.fixtures_path,
+                                                    'cmd-001.yaml'),
+                                       'foo-job'])
+        args.output_dir = mock.MagicMock()
+        config = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()
+        config.readfp(cStringIO.StringIO(cmd.DEFAULT_CONF))
+        cmd.execute(args, config)   # probably better to fail here
+
+    def test_console_output(self):
+        """
+        Run test mode and verify that resulting XML gets sent to the console.
+        """
+
+        console_out = cStringIO.StringIO()
+        with mock.patch('sys.stdout', console_out):
+            cmd.main(['test', os.path.join(self.fixtures_path,
+                      'cmd-001.yaml')])
+        xml_content = u"%s" % codecs.open(os.path.join(self.fixtures_path,
+                                                       'cmd-001.xml'),
+                                          'r',
+                                          'utf-8').read()
+        self.assertEqual(console_out.getvalue(), xml_content)