1. Grab a YAML dump of your production database schema

• Use SQLFairy's SQL::Translator

• For example:

% mysqldump -d mydatabase | perl -MSQL::Translator -e
        'my $trans = SQL::Translator->new;
        print $trans->translate(
         from => "MySQL", to => "YAML", 
         data => join("", <STDIN>));'
        > config.yaml

• Keeping the YAML file up to date is easily automated - script, cron job, whatever

• Call build_test_db() every time it changes