diff --git a/Dockerfile.test b/Dockerfile.test
index 6f1a13de..045cb49d 100644
--- a/Dockerfile.test
+++ b/Dockerfile.test
@@ -3,18 +3,21 @@ FROM centos:7
 COPY epel.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/
 RUN yum -y install --nogpgcheck epel-release && \
     rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-* && \
-    yum -y install make libgit2-glib tito python-pylint  \
+    yum -y install make libgit2-glib tito pylint  \
                     python-nose python-mako python-flask \
                     python-coverage libselinux-python sudo \
                     pykickstart python2-pytoml python-sphinx \
                     python2-mock python-semantic_version \
-                    anaconda-tui && \
+                    anaconda-tui python-gevent beakerlib && \
     yum clean all && \
-    rm -rf /var/cache/yum
-
+    rm -rf /var/cache/yum && \
+    useradd weldr
 
 RUN mkdir /lorax
 COPY . /lorax
+# remove byte-compiled files to avoid issues between Python 2/3
+# this can happen when you switch between rhel7 and master branches
+RUN find /lorax -name "*.pyc" -exec rm -f {} \;
 
 WORKDIR /lorax
 RUN make test
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2ce4b668..8388bd92 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -42,6 +42,9 @@ test: docs
 	coverage combine
 	coverage report -m
 	[ -f "/usr/bin/coveralls" ] && [ -n "$(COVERALLS_REPO_TOKEN)" ] && coveralls || echo
+	
+	./tests/test_cli.sh
+
 
 check:
 	@echo "*** Running pylint ***"
diff --git a/tests/cli/test_blueprints_sanity.sh b/tests/cli/test_blueprints_sanity.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..a97f425a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/cli/test_blueprints_sanity.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# Note: execute this file from the project root directory
+
+. /usr/share/beakerlib/beakerlib.sh
+
+CLI="./src/bin/composer-cli"
+
+
+rlJournalStart
+    rlPhaseStartTest "blueprints list"
+        for bp in http-server development atlas; do
+            rlRun -t -c "$CLI blueprints list | grep $bp"
+        done
+    rlPhaseEnd
+
+    rlPhaseStartTest "blueprints save"
+        rlRun -t -c "$CLI blueprints save http-server"
+        rlAssertExists "http-server.toml"
+        rlAssertGrep "http-server" "http-server.toml"
+        rlAssertGrep "httpd" "http-server.toml"
+
+        # non-existing blueprint
+# enable test for https://github.com/weldr/lorax/issues/460
+#        rlRun -t -c "$CLI blueprints save non-existing-bp" 1
+#        rlAssertNotExists "non-existing-bp.toml"
+    rlPhaseEnd
+
+    rlPhaseStartTest "blueprints push"
+
+        cat > beakerlib.toml << __EOF__
+name = "beakerlib"
+description = "Start building tests with beakerlib."
+version = "0.0.1"
+
+[[modules]]
+name = "beakerlib"
+version = "*"
+__EOF__
+
+        rlRun -t -c "$CLI blueprints push beakerlib.toml"
+        rlRun -t -c "$CLI blueprints list | grep beakerlib"
+    rlPhaseEnd
+
+rlJournalEnd
+rlJournalPrintText
diff --git a/tests/test_cli.sh b/tests/test_cli.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..740fea44
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_cli.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# Note: execute this file from the project root directory
+
+# setup
+
+export TESTRESULT_BEAKERLIB_DIR=`mktemp -d /var/tmp/beakerlib-composer-XXXXXX`
+export top_srcdir=`pwd`
+. ./tests/testenv.sh
+
+if [ ! -d "/var/lib/lorax/composer" ]; then
+    mkdir -p /var/lib/lorax/composer
+    chown -R root:weldr /var/lib/lorax/
+    chmod -R 775 /var/lib/lorax/
+fi
+
+# start the lorax-composer daemon
+./src/sbin/lorax-composer ./tests/pylorax/blueprints/ &
+
+# wait for the backend to become ready
+until curl --unix-socket /run/weldr/api.socket http://localhost:4000/api/status | grep '"db_supported": true'; do
+    sleep 2
+    echo "DEBUG: Waiting for backend API to become ready before testing ..."
+done;
+
+# invoke cli/ tests
+./tests/cli/test_blueprints_sanity.sh
+
+
+# look for failures
+grep RESULT_STRING $TESTRESULT_BEAKERLIB_DIR/TestResults | grep -v PASS && exit 1
+
+# explicit return code for Makefile
+exit 0