# PSConfEU 2026 Session Videos Now Available on YouTube


The recordings of [PSConfEU 2026](https://psconf.eu/recordings/videos-2026/) are online, and that includes both of my sessions: an advanced Pester workshop together with Jakub Jareš, and a session on building better PowerShell code with GitHub's Spec Kit.

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Same as [last year](/2025-08-01-psconfeu-2025-videos-online/), here's what's in them and where to find them. For the conference itself, see my [PSConfEU 2026 recap](/2026-06-08-psconfeu-2026-recap/). All the slides and code from the conference are in the [psconfeu/2026](https://github.com/psconfeu/2026) repository.

## Session #1: Beyond the Basics: Advanced Pester Testing (Workshop)

**[Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5aK8XYcfOo)** — about two hours

Last year's Pester workshop was meant to be a collaboration with Jakub Jareš, the maintainer of Pester, but illness kept him from attending. This year it worked out, and we presented the workshop together.


Where last year's workshop started from zero, this one picks up after the basics. It's hands-on, built around a local API and a mock PowerShell module, and covers:

- **A quick recap** of the Pester basics — `BeforeAll`, `Describe`, `Context`, `It` and `Should` — and setting up VS Code for Pester
- **Data-driven testing** with `-ForEach`, including nested data, test names built from templates, and why data that generates tests has to live in `BeforeDiscovery` instead of `BeforeAll`
- **Mocking** — guarding external calls, mocking private module functions, checking calls with `Should -Invoke`, mock scope, and freezing time by mocking `Get-Date`
- **Integration testing and tags**, running the same tests against a real local server
- **Pester configuration** for consistent runs in CI

If you're new to Pester, start with [getting started with Pester](/2025-06-02-getting-started-with-pester/) or last year's beginner workshop first. And for what's new since the workshop, see [Pester 6](/2026-07-14-pester-v6-released/) and [Pester 6.1](/2026-08-16-pester-v6-1/).

## Session #2: Building better PowerShell code using GitHub's Spec Kit

**[Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAFwhVdrzck)** — about 45 minutes

[Spec Kit](https://github.com/github/spec-kit) is GitHub's toolkit for spec-driven development with AI coding assistants: you describe *what* you want built in plain English before any code is written, and the AI works from that specification instead of an ad-hoc prompt.

The session covers:

- **What Spec Kit is**, and how spec-driven development differs from test-driven development
- **Installing it** — persistent, one-off and per-repository options
- **The workflow** — a *constitution* with the non-negotiable rules for your project, then specify, clarify, plan, tasks, analyze and implement
- **A live demo**: initializing a project, the generated templates and workflow files, and generating user stories, acceptance criteria and tasks
- **Pros and cons** compared with more ad-hoc AI-assisted coding: clearer guardrails, an audit trail and a reusable structure, against extra questions, overhead and token usage before you see any code

The short version of the conclusion: it pays off for longer-lived, production-style work, and is overkill for a quick proof of concept.

## Watch them

Both videos are in the [PSConfEU 2026 playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDCEho7foSorKmHihaqGohyfWSMW5ZYOq), together with the rest of the conference sessions.


Happy learning! 🎉