diff --git a/tests/test_app.cfg b/tests/test_app.cfg
index f940c1df..fd91ed8b 100644
--- a/tests/test_app.cfg
+++ b/tests/test_app.cfg
@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@
 
 # sample config file for tests (some functions run config.read_config()
 # which reads app.cfg by default)
+[buildenv]
+
 [job_manager]
 
 # variable 'comment' under 'submitted_job_comments' should not be changed as there are regular expression patterns matching it