Because the UnitTest class different from a regular class just by the TestClass decorator, I think there is no template for UnitTest class.

Current status: Templates are missing from .NET Core

I have come to the conclusion that these are missing (among other non-test templates see Item templates are missing).

I have now raised a seperate issue on GitHub to make these test templates available to .NET Core projects and up to the level where the .NET Framework templates are. You can follow the progress here: Unit test templates missing from .NET Core Unit test project

Hopefully this will be helpful to someone missing these templates in .NET Core.

For clarity this is what I've tried

• Trying multiple installs of Visual Studio 2017 (on different computers)
• Asking colleagues to reproduce same behaviour
• Ticking variety of different options on the Visual Studio installer
• Plenty of Googling

baruchiro (5 May 2019) explained:

Because the UnitTest class different from a regular class just by the TestClass decorator, I think there is no template for UnitTest class.

It appears baruchiro is correct: As of 25 July 2019, according to a post on Visual Studio Developer Community, those templates probably are not coming back.

There has been clean up of a lot of menu items and these options have been removed from .NET Framework projects as well in VS2017 as part of overall cleanup of less used/low value options. At this time we do not intend to add these option back.

I fear the OP may have already found the best solution/workaround at this time (copy test class and rename).

Remember to:

• rename both the .cs file as well as the class reference inside the file.
• include the using statement to the item you're wanting to test.

These test templates are missing (at least in VS2019), so you can just make a normal class and use below as a template:

using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;
using <class_to_test>;

namespace <class_to_test>Tests
{
    [TestClass]
    public class <class_to_test>Test
    {

        [TestMethod]
        public void TestMethod1()
        {

        }
   }
}

you should replace <class_to_test> for the name of your class. It is good practice to name your test same as your class + Test. Make sure that your class is public, otherwise the test will not be started.

You might have to add the project you want to test dependencies, if you did not already do that.