diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 98e512d..d23d1e6 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 # Git demo
 
 
-This project contains 5 bash scripts, and 3 branches we can use for testing.
+This project contains 5 bash scripts, and 3 branches we can use for testing. The testing script validates that the **scripts/** directory contains executable .sh files.
+
diff --git a/tests/test.sh b/tests/test.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..0d072ae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+set -e
+
+# validate that the scripts folder only has .sh files
+if [[ $(find scripts -type f -not -name "*.sh") ]]; then
+  echo "Error: scripts folder contains non-bash files"
+  exit 1
+fi
+
+# validate all scripts are executable
+for file in scripts/*.sh; do
+  if [[ ! -x "$file" ]]; then
+    echo "Error: $file is not executable"
+    exit 1
+  fi
+done