I have a naked rails 3 app with one model, generated using rails g model User. I've added a factory (using factory_girl_rails): Factory.define :user do |f| f.email "test@test.com" f.password "blah" f.password_confirmation "blah" f.display_name "neezer" end Then I've added one test: require 'spec_helper' describe User do subject { Factory :user } it "can be created from a factory" do subject.should