- name
- agent-host-e2e-tests
- description
- Use when writing, recording, updating, validating, or troubleshooting Agent Host end-to-end and real-provider integration tests under src/vs/platform/agentHost/test/node/e2e and providerIntegration. Covers adding a cross-provider test, re-recording fixtures after an SDK bump, required cross-platform Azure validation, gating non-deterministic or platform-specific tests, and diagnosing replay cache misses.
# Agent host end-to-end tests
These tests run the whole agent host end-to-end (real server, real bundled provider SDK/CLI, real AHP protocol) while replaying recorded model traffic from committed YAML fixtures — deterministic and tokenless.
**Before doing anything, read the architecture + troubleshooting reference:** `src/vs/platform/agentHost/test/node/e2e/README.md`
It documents the mental model, the fixture format, every config flag, and a symptom→cause→fix troubleshooting table. This skill is only the *workflows*; the README is the source of truth for *how it works*.
When validating an upstream provider/runtime fix, use [ci-artifact-testing](../ci-artifact-testing/SKILL.md) to check for a compatible CI artifact before building locally. Run the same strict replay against the bundled baseline and candidate; preserve the test assertions and existing cross-platform validation requirements.
## Core invariants
1. **Replay is default and strict.** No env var serves committed fixtures without a token or network. An unrecorded request is a hard cache miss.
2. **Fixture names derive from test titles.** Renaming a model-backed test orphans `${provider}-${slug}.yaml`; re-record after a rename. Tests explicitly registered with `hostOnlyTest(...)` share `captures/empty.yaml`.
3. **Recording is intentional and credentialed.** `AGENT_HOST_REPLAY_RECORD=1` talks to real CAPI and needs `GITHUB_TOKEN` or `gh auth token`. Keep prompts trivial and read-only in temporary directories.
4. **Fixtures are generated, never hand-edited.** Fix normalization or redaction and re-record if a capture contains unstable or sensitive data.
5. **Disabled variants stay accountable.** Record every gate in `e2e/KNOWN_ISSUES.md` with its scope, expected and observed behavior, and focused reproduction command.
6. **Azure validation is required.** Every new Agent Host E2E or real-provider integration test must pass a focused build from VS Code pipeline definition `111` before merge.
## Basic workflow: write and evaluate an E2E test
1. **Choose the boundary and tier.** Put provider-invariant AHP behavior in conformance, provider behavior in parity, and use `providerHostOnlyTest(...)` only when provider-specific behavior must not cross the model boundary.
2. **Add the test to the closest suite.** Create and register a focused suite module only when the behavior is distinct. Keep provider-specific assertions in the provider's `*.integrationTest.ts`.
3. **Implement the smallest deterministic scenario.** Keep prompts minimal, drive behavior over AHP, wait for the exact prerequisite and completion states, and drain every model-backed turn.
4. **Assert the contract's primary observable result.** Check the real protocol result or external side effect; snapshot additional traffic only when ordering, routing, or lifecycle is part of the contract.
5. **Record every enabled provider fixture.** Host-only tests use the shared strict empty fixture. Follow the recording workflow below for model-backed tests.
6. **Review generated artifacts.** Check fixture and snapshot diffs for the intended behavior, normalized paths, no credentials or usernames, and no unintended model or request changes.
7. **Evaluate locally.** Run the focused test in strict replay, run adjacent tests when helpers or shared state changed, repeat timing- or lifecycle-sensitive scenarios, then run the full deterministic suite and required coverage, type-check, hygiene, and layer checks from the E2E README.
8. **Evaluate in CI.** Open or update a draft PR and complete the cross-platform Azure validation below. Timing, process-lifecycle, filesystem-watching, reconnect, restart, and worktree tests require two clean executions on every supported platform.
## General best practices and mistakes to avoid
Keep this section curated. Add or refine a principle only when root-cause analysis reveals a pattern likely to improve other tests; keep failure-specific commands, logs, and mechanics in the E2E README or investigation report.
- **Wait for the contract state, not a proxy.** Existence, discovery, or an emitted intermediate action may not mean a dependency is operational. For example, wait for the target chat's MCP server to report `Ready`, not merely for its plugin child to appear.
- **Assert primary outcomes before secondary effects.** A hook, notification, assistant response, or persisted record can be downstream of the behavior under test. First prove the actual tool result or external side effect succeeded.
- **Do not confuse replay success with execution success.** Replay controls model traffic; live tools, MCP servers, hooks, commands, and filesystem operations can still fail. Recorded assistant text is not an oracle for those operations.
- **Synchronize on observable state, never elapsed time.** Use protocol notifications or exact state polling instead of sleeps, timeout increases, or existence-only checks.
- **Respect scope and lifecycle.** Readiness can belong to a specific chat, session, provider process, or workspace. Exercise reconfiguration before the first turn as well as after established history: a running provider process does not prove a resumable conversation exists. Materialize and observe the same scope the operation will use, drain work before teardown, and clean up owned resources. Keep temporary workspaces outside instruction-bearing ancestors: changing their location can inject unrelated repository customizations into a provider's model request.
- **Separate storage semantics from device latency.** RAM-backed files can retain real SQLite transactions, close/reopen, and host-restart behavior; keep required disk-backed lifecycle coverage separately. Compare unchanged workloads on the same worker and inspect phase timings, not just pass counts, before attributing a timeout to physical storage.
- **Centralize recurring lifecycle barriers.** If several tests need the same multi-step prerequisite, encode it in a shared helper so tests cannot choose a weaker intermediate condition.
- **Gate genuine nondeterminism narrowly.** Use record-only or provider/platform gates only for behavior that cannot replay deterministically or is unsupported; never use a gate to hide an unexplained failure.
## Record or re-record fixtures
Re-record when you add a test, or when a bundled SDK/CLI bump changes its wire behavior (new endpoint, different turn count, changed tool schema).
1. Ensure a token is available: `gh auth token` (or export `GITHUB_TOKEN`).
2. Record per provider:
```bash
AGENT_HOST_REPLAY_RECORD=1 ./scripts/test-integration.sh --run \
src/vs/platform/agentHost/test/node/e2e/providers/claudeAgentHostE2E.integrationTest.ts
```
Repeat for `copilotAgentHostE2E` / `codexAgentHostE2E` as needed.
3. **Review `git diff` on the fixtures**: no local usernames/absolute paths, no tokens, no unreleased model ids. If something leaked, the fix is to extend normalization/redaction in `capiReplayProxy.ts` (`_normalize` + the `*_RE` redactors) and re-record — not to edit the fixture.
4. Run plain replay (no env var) to confirm green, then commit.
If an SDK now hits a new **ancillary/bootstrap** endpoint (a probe, not a real model turn), add it to `capiStubs.ts` (served, not recorded) instead of recording it — see how `/models/session` is handled.
## Gate a variant that cannot replay deterministically
Real-time streaming, mid-turn aborts, and POSIX-specific local execution (shell tools, `pwd`, git worktrees) don't replay reliably. Gate them precisely so you keep coverage where it works:
- **Record-only** (no deterministic replay at all): `(RECORD ? test : test.skip)('…')` — see `can abort a running turn`.
- **Subagent fixtures stale after an SDK bump**: re-record them (`AGENT_HOST_REPLAY_RECORD=1 …`). Subagent flows are the most SDK-version-sensitive (parent + child share one `/v1/messages` sequence), but replay reliably once re-recorded, so no gating is needed.
- **POSIX-only** (fails on Windows): gate with `!isWindows`, or a targeted per-provider flag when only one provider diverges. See the worktree and subagent-reopen tests.
- **Provider/OS-specific replay**: add a targeted config gate that still permits recording and unaffected platforms. See the Codex shell-tool Linux gate.
Always add a comment explaining *why* the gate exists. Also add or update the corresponding entry in `e2e/KNOWN_ISSUES.md`. When the variant is enabled again, remove or update the entry in the same change.
## Cross-platform Azure validation
New Agent Host E2E and real-provider integration tests are not ready to merge after local or GitHub pull-request CI alone. Push the branch, open or update a draft PR, then use the `azure-pipelines` skill to validate the real packaged Electron integration-test path.
1. Queue VS Code pipeline definition `111` with `VSCODE_BUILD_TYPE=CI`; enable Windows, Linux, and macOS x64 while disabling publishing, release, Web, ARM, Alpine, and Snap artifacts. The `azure-pipelines` skill contains the canonical command.
2. Monitor jobs as they finish. Inspect a failed platform's `Agent Host E2E Tests (Electron)` job and its `🧪 Run Agent Host E2E tests (Electron)` task (test ID `integration-agent-host-e2e`) immediately rather than waiting for unrelated stages to complete.
3. Treat the Agent Host E2E result as accepted only when the `🧪 Run Agent Host E2E tests (Electron)` task succeeds on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
4. Rerun an apparently unrelated or pre-existing failure in isolation before attributing it to the PR.
5. After a platform-specific fix, rerun at least that platform. Rerun all three platforms when the fix can affect shared behavior, provider fixtures, process lifecycle, or cross-platform paths.
6. Cancel obsolete builds after pushing a replacement commit.
## Verifying & troubleshooting
- Run a single provider in replay: `./scripts/test-integration.sh --run <path>` (no env var).
- Filter to one test: add `--grep "<test title fragment>"`.
- **On a hang / timeout, read the runtime log first.** For the **Copilot** provider, a failed test tails the most recent Copilot runtime (`@github/copilot` CLI) `process-*.log` into the test output (`[agent-host-e2e] # …` lines) — the SDK/CLI's own account of startup, auth, the model request, and the turn lifecycle. It runs at `--log trace`. A turn that never produced a model response, a panic, or an out-of-order/protocol error points at the SDK/CLI (re-record if a bump left the fixture stale; otherwise it's a real regression). Claude/Codex use their own runtimes and are not captured here. See the README's "A turn hangs or times out with no OS pattern".
- For any failure (`cache miss`, missing fixture, per-OS timeout, leaked PII, subagent staleness, accidental real-CAPI contact), go to the **Troubleshooting** section of the README — it maps each symptom to its cause and fix.
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