CTEST defines an interface for building C++ software. The major emphasis is to build and test libraries made up of components which are tested individually. It also provides for integrated testing and the construction of executables.
Version 2 of the CTEST interface is described in the CTEST 2.0 interface specification.
The best implementation of the CTEST interface is CTBUILD. It has been designed to run either standalone or in the D0 SRT environment. Only the latter is well tested.
The original CTEST interface was described at CHEP98:
Here is a talk describing the status of CTBUILD on Nov 4, 1998.