RabbitMQ’s exchange-queue model, routing keys, dead-letter exchanges, and message TTL are features that cannot be tested with mocks. The broker’s routing logic — topic exchange patterns, fanout behavior, message acknowledgment, and requeue behavior on rejection — all require a real broker. This article covers RabbitMQ integration testing with RabbitMQContainer. What You’ll Learn RabbitMQContainer setup and @ServiceConnection Configuring exchanges, queues, and bindings for tests Testing @RabbitListener consumers with Awaitility Testing dead-letter exchange and dead-letter queue routing Testing message TTL and automatic expiry Testing acknowledgment modes Dependencies <dependency> <groupId>org.