| name | tart-ci |
| description | Stand up a fast, cached, isolated, disposable macOS CI lane on Tart — layered golden VM images, ephemeral per-job GitHub Actions runners, host-mounted caches, and a reusable per-repo vm-image manifest. Use when setting up VM-based CI for Pulp or generalizing it to another repo, building/refreshing golden images, wiring ephemeral runners, or debugging the VM lane. |
| requires | ["tart","sshpass","gh"] |
Tart golden-VM CI lane
Run every macOS build/validation in a throwaway VM cloned from a versioned golden image so the host stays responsive and builds are reproducible. Generalizes to any repo via one vm-image manifest. Born from Pulp planning/2026-06-01-macos-ci-isolation-plan.md; the reusable macOS provider now lives in the sibling /Volumes/Workshop/Code/tartci repo. Pulp's tools/ci/tart-runner.sh / tart-run-job.sh scripts are the legacy/precursor shape and should stay as compatibility wrappers once the tartci lane graduates.
Why (the failure modes this fixes)
- Build-dir churn → ODR heap corruption. One
build/ reconfigured across branches/build-types mixes object layouts → malloc: error for object 0x3f800000 (that's 1.0f freed as a pointer) aborting in e.g. Theme::~Theme. Every job in a pristine clone makes this impossible.
- Host-local validation is fragile + invasive. Validating in the editing checkout inherits churn, pops GUI keychain dialogs, and competes for CPU. VMs are headless and disposable.
- Spotlight/
fseventsd storms from build churn make the Mac unusable. VMs + .metadata_never_index keep the host calm.
Core pieces (all in tools/ci/)
| Script | Role |
|---|
setup-ci-host.sh | One-command host onboarding (opinionated): install tart/sshpass, set ~/VMs (no FDA), acquire the golden (--copy-from or bake), install the launchd runner agent with a --class label. Mirrors docs/guides/mac-ci-host-setup.md. |
tart-provision.sh | Build/refresh layered golden images; verify/tag/resize/manifest helpers. Subcommands: base → apple-xcode → pulp → runner. |
tart-runner.sh | Ephemeral per-job GitHub Actions runner. Mints a JIT (single-job) runner config, clones the runner golden, boots with host ccache mounted, runs one job, destroys the VM. --loop boots a fresh VM only when there's queued work for --workflow-name / PULP_RUNNER_WORKFLOW_NAME (default Build and Test) AND a free VM slot (running_macos_vms < cap); --once for a pilot; --cap N overrides the per-host cap. Registers under a static name per (host, slot) — pulp-<class>-<NN>, derived from the pulp-build-<class> label (override with --name / --name-prefix / --slot or PULP_RUNNER_NAME[_PREFIX] / PULP_RUNNER_SLOT). --print-name echoes the derived name and exits (pure; no gh/tart — what test_tart_runner.py asserts). |
tart-run-job.sh | Direct ephemeral build (no GitHub runner): clone golden → virtio-fs mount host caches → build+ctest in-guest → discard. Useful for Shipyard backend / manual builds. |
pulp-worktree.sh | Per-branch worktrees + shared ccache (host-side dev isolation; complements the VM lane). |
.shipyard/vm-image.toml | The per-repo reuse unit (see below). |
The reusable runner path is now the sibling tartci repo:
tartci serve macos --once|--loop --labels ... owns ephemeral JIT runners.tartci observe macos --json [--runner <name>] ties GitHub job, local VM,
guest process, ctest tail, and runner log together.tartci doctor --reap --json is the local cleanup/health digest.TARTCI_RUNTIME_MEASURE=1 tartci serve ... records per-job VM timings; use
tartci runtime recent|summary|export --repo danielraffel/pulp --json and
pipe exports into shipyard metrics import tartci for long-term agent
baselines.shipyard --json runner fleet-status --target macos is the cross-host pool
view for macOS VM slots and supervisor freshness.
The vm-image manifest (the unit of reuse)
A new repo adds one .shipyard/vm-image.toml and the same tart-provision.sh manifest <path> bakes it — no hand-provisioning. Two strategies:
strategy = "bake" — pre-bake a project image (fast clones for hot repos).strategy = "configure-on-boot" — clone the bare base + apply the manifest on boot (flexible/new repos).
Fields: base, disk_gb, auto_login, [toolchain].xcode (omit → no Xcode tier), [toolchain].rust + .rust_targets + .rosetta (Intel cross-build layer — omit → not installed), [brew].packages, [pip].packages, [caches].ccache_max, [[mounts]]. See .shipyard/vm-image.toml (Pulp: Xcode+Skia), .shipyard/vm-image.intel.toml (Intel cross-build layer), and tools/ci/examples/vm-image.rust-repo.toml (a light Rust profile, no Xcode — proves generalization).
Intel (x86_64) cross-build lane — no native Intel hardware needed
Pulp's darwin-x64 release leg is native on GitHub's macos-15-intel (slow, nightly-gated). For an interactive "does the Intel build still work?" check, an Apple-Silicon host cross-compiles x86_64 and runs it under Rosetta 2 — no Intel Mac, and nothing installed on the host.
Verified base/runtime specifics (cirruslabs + Tart, 2026-06-01)
- Base image
ghcr.io/cirruslabs/macos-tahoe-base:latest = macOS 26 "Tahoe" (matches Xcode 26.5 / build 17F42). Default creds admin/admin.
- The vanilla base already enables auto-login (kcpassword +
loginwindow autoLoginUser) and Remote Login (sshd) — verify, don't recreate. Auto-login is REQUIRED for WindowServer/Metal.
tart set <vm> --disk-size N only grows, only on a stopped VM; the bundled tart-guest-agent grows APFS on next boot.- Prefer rsync'ing a host-installed Xcode into the golden over an in-guest
xcodes install (interactive 2FA + multi-hour re-download). Remote rsync to /Applications needs --rsync-path="sudo /opt/homebrew/bin/rsync".
Caching strategy (the smart split)
- Immutable, expensive-to-build deps → baked into the golden (CoW-shared, ~free per clone). Skia + Dawn are prebuilt static libs (
libskia.a, libdawn_combined.a, ~385 MB) baked at ~/pulp-skia-build; SKIA_DIR points there. They are never recompiled.
- Mutable, growing caches → host-mounted via virtio-fs. ccache (warm across clones — measured cold→warm 0.6%→88%) and FetchContent sources. Keep
CCACHE_TEMPDIR in-guest (cross-fs rename onto virtio-fs breaks ccache); CCACHE_BASEDIR normalizes paths; guest admin is uid 501 == host primary user so the shared ccache is writable both ways.
ccache correctness on a shared, many-worktree cache — the #3504 combo
A host that runs 100+ worktrees off one .git against one shared ccache is cold by construction unless paths are normalized AND depend mode is off. Two failure modes to keep straight:
- Cold cache, a perf loss: no
base_dir + hash_dir=true → every worktree keys on its own absolute path, so nothing hits. Fix: base_dir=<common worktree parent> + hash_dir=false so a hit compiled in one workspace serves another.
- Corruption, a correctness scar — this is #3504: depend mode via
CCACHE_DEPEND/depend_mode=true with the default mtime compiler keying on a shared cache serves a stale/false-hit object that corrupts unrelated TUs — a pure function returns "" and change-unrelated tests fail while clean local Debug+Release pass. Fix: depend mode OFF plus compiler_check=content. Direct mode stays on: fast and correct once depend is off.
These live in the versioned scripts so hosts converge, not just in one host's live config: tools/ci/bootstrap-macos-host.sh tune_ccache() writes them into the shared $CCACHE_DIR/ccache.conf (base_dir derived from the CI work root, never a hardcoded home), and tools/ci/pulp-worktree.sh cache_env() emits CCACHE_NODEPEND=true + CCACHE_COMPILERCHECK=content for the shipyard/worktree lane. .github/workflows/build.yml forces the same combo via job env for the GH-runner lane. Never turn depend mode back on for speed.
GPU works in the guest (no hybrid lane needed)
Apple Virtualization provides Metal in the guest even with --no-graphics. Verified: pulp-screenshot --backend skia renders a real Skia/Metal PNG, nm pulp-ui-preview | grep MacGpuWindowHost = present. So the full mac lane (build + GPU + tests) runs in-VM.
Dependency updates → golden re-bake (don't get stuck on old deps)
Skia/Dawn are pinned in tools/deps/manifest.json (release-asset URL + sha256 per platform; tools/scripts/fetch_skia_for_release.py consumes it). Single source of truth = the manifest pin.
- When deps bump (new
danielraffel/skia-builder release, e.g. chrome/m149 → newer), the Dependency Update Workflow bumps the manifest pin.
- Then re-bake the golden so its baked Skia matches: re-run the
pulp/runner tiers (they should fetch per the current pin, not a stale copy), tag a new :<date>, refresh :latest. Ephemeral jobs clone :latest → get the new Skia. Keep the last 1–2 dated goldens per tier; prune older.
- Tie golden re-bakes to dependency-bump PRs and toolchain bumps (Xcode). Pinning Xcode + Skia in-image keeps font/raster goldens reproducible.
Concurrency & hosts
- macOS caps 2 concurrent running VMs PER HOST (kernel quota; booting a 3rd throws "number of VMs exceeds the system limit"). For ≥3 concurrent, distribute runners across multiple Macs (e.g. Mac Studio + MacBook Pro M5 → 2+2 = 4) — each runs
tart-runner.sh; new hosts inherit the host-class label (*-studio, *-m1, *-m5) and cap=2. A dedicated Studio can raise the cap via the kernel-quota override (plan Appendix D; SIP off + dev kernel — last resort).
- A persistent operator VM (e.g.
pulp-vm) on a host consumes 1 of its 2 slots.
- Capacity-aware local queue draining is implemented and VM-slot-aware. The current tartci/Shipyard path shares one rule: a host has free macOS capacity when
running_macos_vms < cap (cap = 2/host), and only macOS/Darwin guests consume the macos VM slot. Linux Tart and Windows QEMU lanes use their own labels, supervisors, and caps; they do not reduce macOS free slots, though CPU/RAM can still need route weights or reservations.
- Local-first policy: Pulp's automatic macOS overflow is disabled with
PULP_OVERFLOW_BUILD_MACOS_RUNS_ON_JSON=local-only. Do not point full-local saturation at GitHub-hosted macos-15; let jobs queue for the next local Mac slot. Hosted macOS is an explicit operator fallback for a local fleet outage/unhealthy fleet or a workflow that intentionally wants hosted coverage. Rollback for the old behavior: gh variable set -R danielraffel/pulp PULP_OVERFLOW_BUILD_MACOS_RUNS_ON_JSON --body '["macos-15"]'.
- Production required macOS route is VM-first (2026-06-10):
PULP_LOCAL_MACOS_RUNS_ON_JSON=["self-hosted","macOS","ARM64","pulp-build","pulp-build-vm"] and PULP_LOCAL_MAC_RUNNER_LABEL=pulp-build-vm. The VM supervisors advertise both pulp-build and pulp-build-vm; bare-metal pulp-build runners stay online but are excluded from the default route by the extra pulp-build-vm label. Full rollback: restore PULP_LOCAL_MACOS_RUNS_ON_JSON to ["self-hosted","pulp-build"], restore PULP_LOCAL_MAC_RUNNER_LABEL=pulp-build, and unload the VM LaunchAgents if the VM pool itself is unhealthy.
Linux + Windows pool runners (join the Actions pool like macOS)
Each platform serves the GitHub Actions pool via its own ephemeral per-job
runner supervisor — the analog of tart-runner.sh for macOS:
| Supervisor | VM | Golden | Labels (pilot) | LaunchAgent |
|---|
tools/ci/tart-runner.sh | Tart macOS | pulp-build-runner | …,pulp-build | com.danielraffel.pulp.tart-runner |
tools/ci/tart-runner.sh --workflow-name Coverage | Tart macOS | pulp-build-runner | …,pulp-coverage-vm-macos | com.danielraffel.pulp.tart-runner-coverage-macos |
tools/ci/tart-runner-linux.sh | Tart Linux | pulp-linux-build | …,Linux,ARM64,pulp-build-linux | com.danielraffel.pulp.tart-runner-linux |
tools/ci/qemu-runner-windows.sh | QEMU Windows | pulp-windows-build-*.qcow2 | …,Windows,ARM64,pulp-build-windows | com.danielraffel.pulp.qemu-runner-windows |
All three: mint a JIT (single-job) runner config → boot a throwaway clone
(Tart CoW for Linux, qcow2 overlay on a dynamic SSH port for Windows) → run the
baked ~/actions-runner agent once → discard. The goldens carry the
actions-runner-{linux-arm64,win-arm64} agent (Windows install-if-missing if a
golden predates the bake). --loop only boots when there's queued
Build and Test work. The macOS coverage lane is the exception: it runs the
same Tart supervisor with --workflow-name Coverage and a dedicated
pulp-coverage-vm-macos label. Keep --queue-match-labels enabled for this
lane so hosted Coverage jobs do not boot a local VM that cannot claim them.
Coverage/sanitizer/release lanes must never reuse the warm macOS gate labels or
the shared pulp-build-vm build-pilot label. Coverage routing belongs in
PULP_COVERAGE_MACOS_RUNS_ON_JSON or a one-off macos_runner_selector_json
dispatch, with a dedicated ephemeral label such as pulp-coverage-vm-macos.
Per-platform opt-in/out is the Shipyard macOS GUI's "Serve CI builds from
this Mac" switch: each lane is a CIServingLane toggled by launchctl load/unload of its LaunchAgent (the labels above). Install a lane on a host by
sed-templating its tools/launchd/*.plist.template into ~/Library/LaunchAgents
(replace $PULP_REPO, $HOME, and $TART_HOME/$TARTCI_GOLDENS — launchd
doesn't expand shell vars). Pulp CI routes to these via build.yml's opt-in
PULP_LOCAL_{LINUX,WINDOWS}_RUNS_ON_JSON repo vars (default off → github-hosted).
Hard-won Windows-runner gotchas:
- The multi-KB JIT blob must NEVER ride a command line — through the
ssh→cmd.exe→powershell chain it blows cmd's 8191-char limit ("The command line
is too long"), whether passed as a
run.cmd --jitconfig arg OR embedded in a
powershell -EncodedCommand. Stream it into a file via ssh stdin, then run
Runner.Listener.exe run --jitconfig (Get-Content jit.cfg).
- A golden may cache the Actions runner binaries, but it must not reuse a stale
registration. Scrub
C:\actions-runner\.runner, .credentials,
.credentials_rsaparams, .env, .path, and jit.cfg before every JIT run;
otherwise the guest can connect to GitHub and then fail with "runner
registration has been deleted" before claiming the queued job.
git reset --hard (+ core.autocrlf false) for checkout — the golden's tree
carries autocrlf churn that aborts a plain git checkout.
Shipping FROM a VM-only runner host
A VM-only host (no host-side cmake/Xcode/Skia — builds only ever run inside
the VMs) can serve the pool fine, but shipyard pr initiated on it needs
care: the default [targets.mac] is backend = "local" (build on the host) and
fails there ("cmake/git-lfs not found"). Don't reach for backend = "ssh" to a
build box either — auval (AU validation) needs a real login/audio session to
register the component, so it fails "didn't find the component" over a headless
ssh host cmd (compile + the rest of ctest pass; only the auval tests fail).
The lane where auval works is one with a session: the self-hosted pool's
auto-login VMs (auto_login = true in the manifest — this is why) or a
cloud macOS runner. So on a VM-only host set, in gitignored .shipyard.local:
[targets.mac]
backend = "cloud"
workflow = "build"
platform = "macos-arm64"
shipyard pr then dispatches build.yml; its resolve-provider sends the mac
leg to the self-hosted pool's auto-login VM (auval green), with cloud overflow.
Flip a lane mid-flight with shipyard cloud retarget --target mac --provider <p>.
(SSH build hosts that you do want to drive headless need brew on the non-login
PATH — eval "$(brew shellenv)" in ~/.zshenv, not just ~/.zprofile — or
ssh host cmd won't find cmake.)
Diagnosing a red macOS leg (read the runner's LOCAL logs — gh is opaque)
On a self-hosted macOS runner, gh run view --log / --job returns nothing
useful for the build/test step — only "Process completed with exit code N"
(exit 8 = ctest had test failures), and check-run annotations are empty too. You
cannot tell which test failed from GitHub's API. But the runner persists
everything locally, so if you're on the runner host (true for Pulp's Mac
Studio — the deps here are the self-hosted Tart/Shipyard pool), read it directly:
- Find the work dir from the runner config — it is NOT
~/actions-runner-*/_work:
grep workFolder ~/actions-runner-pulp-studio-01/.runner
- Read ctest's own result logs in the persisted build dir (
clean:false on
self-hosted keeps build-<key> warm across runs; build-macos is the macOS
leg). These are the authoritative source for which test failed and why:
WS=/Volumes/Workshop/ci/pulp/work/pulp-studio-01/pulp/pulp
cat "$WS/build-macos/Testing/Temporary/LastTestsFailed.log"
grep -aA25 '<test name>' "$WS/build-macos/Testing/Temporary/LastTest.log"
LastTestsFailed.log lines look like 7675:pulp-import-design reports help…;
LastTest.log has the full Catch2 output (file:line: FAILED: + with expansion:). Check all three runners (pulp-studio-01/02/03) — the leg runs
on whichever was free; the freshest LastTestsFailed.log mtime is the run.
- The step command/env (not its output) lives in
~/actions-runner-<name>/_diag/Worker_*.log (most-recent file = most-recent
job; match by the commit SHA, which the checkout echoes). Read step output
from the ctest logs in (2), not from the Worker log.
A "red macOS leg with exit code 8" on a change that can't plausibly affect macOS
is usually a pre-existing failure on main that the (flaky/overflowing) gate
let slip — e.g. a stale exact-match CLI assertion. Read the ctest log, fix the
real failing test, don't chase your own diff. (Found 2026-06-03: #3386's
--emit swiftui broke two test_import_design_tool.cpp exact-match asserts on
main, reddening every PR's macOS gate.)
Rollout: pilot → graduate
- Additive pilot (safe): run
tartci serve macos --once with a non-required label (pulp-build-vm). Trigger a real job without touching required routing: gh workflow run build.yml -f macos_runner_selector_json='["self-hosted","pulp-build-vm"]'. Confirm green.
- Required-label prevalidation (safe): run a one-shot VM with
pulp-build plus a unique proof label, then dispatch Build and Test with macos_runner_selector_json requiring both labels. This proves a VM can satisfy the required label while bare-metal pulp-build remains online. Verified 2026-06-10: run 27250564395, runner tartci-phase6-pulp-build-proof-r2-20260610, macOS (ARM64) [operator] success, macos alias success, VM/JIT runner cleaned up. Cancel unrelated Linux/Windows legs after macos is green.
- Graduated production default route (active 2026-06-10): persistent VM supervisors now advertise
self-hosted,macOS,ARM64,pulp-build,pulp-build-vm, and Pulp's default required macOS selector requires that full set. Real Build and Test jobs have drained on both the controller VM runner and the secondary-host VM runner:
- run
27251134234: default dispatch, no selector override, pulp-vm-01, macOS (ARM64) [local] success, macos alias success; hosted leftovers canceled after macos went green.
- run
27251378268: real PR, secondary-host pulp-vm-m5-pilot-01, macOS (ARM64) [local] success, macos alias success.
- run
27251442228: real PR, controller pulp-vm-01, macOS (ARM64) [local] success, macos alias success.
- Rollback path: keep bare-metal fallback online. To route back to bare-metal:
gh variable set -R danielraffel/pulp PULP_LOCAL_MACOS_RUNS_ON_JSON --body '["self-hosted","pulp-build"]'
gh variable set -R danielraffel/pulp PULP_LOCAL_MAC_RUNNER_LABEL --body 'pulp-build'
launchctl bootout "gui/$(id -u)/com.danielraffel.pulp.tart-runner"
ssh <secondary-host> 'launchctl bootout "gui/$(id -u)/com.danielraffel.pulp.tart-runner-macos-pilot"'
Gotchas (hard-won)
-
NEVER run signing/keychain tests on a non-VM host. check_notarization/codesign tests call security/codesign/notarytool, which on an interactive host pop GUI keychain dialogs and can disrupt the default keychain. Run them only in the disposable VM. Never click "Reset To Defaults" on a keychain prompt on a real Mac; never wipe a host keychain.
-
Gatekeeper disabled in the CI base: the cirruslabs base ships spctl --master-disable, so spctl --assess returns 0 for any path (even nonexistent). check_notarization was hardened with an fs::exists short-circuit so it's correct in both environments (see the ship skill).
-
Clean the build dir on build-type flips. Shipyard backend=local reconfiguring Debug over a Release build/ reproduces the ODR churn → false test failures. rm -rf build first, or (better) validate in the VM, not the editing checkout.
-
An unset TART_HOME is a hard error, by design — do not "fix" it with a default. Every VM tool resolves the store through tools/ci/lib/tart-home.sh: TART_HOME from the env, else vm_home from tartci host-profile --json, else it dies naming the fix. It refuses to guess because a wrong store is silent: tart list against a path with no VMs is an empty list, not an error. That is how the stray-VM reaper spent its life defaulting to $HOME/VMs on a host whose store was elsewhere — inspecting an empty universe, reaping nothing, and exiting 0 reporting success. If a launchd agent dies with the TART_HOME error, the plist is missing its <key>TART_HOME</key> (launchd does not read your shell profile), or its $TART_HOME placeholder was never substituted. Tests: tools/scripts/test_tart_home_resolution.py.
-
Disk: sparse + CoW. Each disk.img is a sparse 150 GB file (~45 GB real); du/Finder show apparent size (N×150 GB) but df shows the truth (CoW clones share blocks — e.g. 13 VMs ≈ 313 GB real). Don't panic at apparent size; prune redundant bare working VMs (tags retain shared blocks).
-
First key injection needs sshpass (password auth once); afterward everything uses the injected id_ed25519. tart ip can take ~10–120 s after boot — poll, don't fixed-sleep.
-
A missing --dir mount target reads as a fake "no IP". tart-runner.sh boots each VM with --dir="ccache:$PULP_CI_CACHE/ccache" (default $HOME/.cache/pulp-ci/ccache). If that host dir doesn't exist — the common case on a fresh CI host — tart run exits immediately with VZErrorDomain Code=2 "directory sharing device configuration is invalid", so the VM never boots and the runner times out 120 s later reporting "no IP" — pointing you at networking when the real cause is a missing directory. setup-ci-host.sh now pre-creates it and tart-runner.sh both mkdir -ps it and prints the tart run boot log on failure. If you ever see "no IP", read the boot log it now emits before suspecting vmnet/DHCP. (Diagnosed on the secondary M-series host bring-up, 2026-06-01: a no---dir boot got an IP in 0 s while a --dir-to-missing-path boot died instantly — the mount, not the network.)
-
Use shipyard (its own higher-quota auth) over raw gh for GitHub ops to avoid rate limits; gh's token lives in the login keychain (or ~/.config/gh/hosts.yml with config storage).
-
Persistent runner via launchd: Full Disk Access + absolute paths. Run the supervisor as a LaunchAgent (tools/launchd/pulp-tart-runner.plist.template) so it survives reboot. Two traps: (1) launchd does NOT expand $HOME/$PULP_REPO in plist values — the install sed must write absolute paths (a literal $HOME log path → exit 78); (2) a LaunchAgent can't read a /Volumes external VM store without Full Disk Access (exit 126 "Operation not permitted") — grant it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access. The interactive shell has this access; the agent does not.
-
Every per-job step in a set -euo pipefail supervisor must clean up on its own failure. The runner supervisors (tools/ci/qemu-runner-windows.sh, tart-runner-linux.sh) boot a VM/overlay, then run several SSH/QEMU steps. Any unguarded command that can fail (a dropped SSH, a PowerShell error streaming the JIT blob to a file) will abort the whole script under set -e before the trailing kill "$qpid"; rm -rf "$jobdir" cleanup — leaking a live QEMU process + overlay dir that a launchd --loop runner then trips over on KeepAlive restart. Mirror the surrounding steps: append || { note …; kill "$qpid" 2>/dev/null||true; rm -rf "$jobdir"; return 1; } to each fallible per-job command, including pipelines (the JIT-config stdin→file upload was the one that slipped through). Caught by Codex review on tartci#10, fixed in both the tartci port and this original.
-
die (which exits) must never be reachable from a per-iteration path — || true cannot catch an exit. All three supervisors (tart-runner.sh, tart-runner-linux.sh, qemu-runner-windows.sh) define die(){ …; exit 1; } for fatal preconditions. exit inside a function terminates the whole script, so a die reached from run_one (JIT mint failure, "no IP after 120s") killed the entire supervisor even though the loop called it as run_one "$i" || true — || guards a non-zero return, not an exit. One transient blip (a gh token hiccup, one slow VM boot) therefore took the runner down until launchd KeepAlive noticed, and repeated fast deaths hit launchd's respawn throttle, turning a seconds-long outage into a long one. The rule: die only for preconditions checked before the loop starts (missing tart/gh/golden, bad args); every failure inside run_one uses soft_fail (same red line, return 1) so the loop counts the failure, backs off (backoff_secs: POLL, 2×, 4×… capped at PULP_VM_BACKOFF_MAX, default 300s), and keeps serving. Related trap: because the loop invokes run_one in a ||/if context, set -e is suppressed for its whole body — so tart clone / qemu-img create need explicit || { soft_fail …; return 1; }, or a failure silently falls through instead of aborting. test_tart_runner.py pins this behaviorally by driving the real loop against stub gh/tart binaries and asserting it reaches iteration 2, plus a structural guard that no die reappears in any run_one.
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A --loop supervisor must tear down its in-flight VM on SIGTERM, not only after each job. Per-job cleanup runs when the agent exits normally, but launchctl unload (the Shipyard GUI "Serve CI builds from this Mac" toggle OFF) sends SIGTERM mid-job or mid-wait — and a warm JIT runner can sit with a VM up for hours waiting for a job. Without a trap, stopping reclaims RAM (launchd kills the tart run child) but orphans a stopped CoW clone on disk and leaves the runner registered-but-offline on GitHub. Track the live VM at script scope (CURRENT_VM/CURRENT_RPID) and trap 'discard_current_vm; trap - EXIT; exit 143' INT TERM + trap discard_current_vm EXIT, clearing the vars in each normal teardown path so the EXIT trap no-ops. The teardown must be FAST — launchd SIGKILLs the supervisor shortly after SIGTERM, so a graceful tart stop + sleep can be cut short and leave a stopped clone behind (RAM freed, but tart delete never runs — observed live on the M5). Hard-kill -9 the tart run host PID (ends the VM at once), then tart delete immediately — no sleep. tart-runner.sh does this; mirror it in the Linux/Windows pool runners when they grow a GUI toggle.
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Runner names are STATIC per (host, slot) — reclaim before reuse. The supervisor registers as pulp-<class>-<NN> (e.g. pulp-m5-01), not the old ephr-<pid>-<counter> churn, so the same physical Mac is recognizable in the Settings → Actions → Runners list and matches the bare-metal pulp-studio-01 convention. A static name is only reusable if you clear the prior identity first: a SIGKILL'd supervisor / errored job / crashed clone can leave a stale GitHub registration (shows Offline) and/or a stopped Tart clone of the same name — and generate-jitconfig rejects a duplicate name while tart clone rejects an existing VM. reclaim_runner_name (runs before every mint) deletes both, best-effort — the JIT-lane equivalent of bare-metal config.sh --replace. The class comes from the pulp-build-<class> label setup-ci-host.sh --class <name> writes into the plist, so no plist edit is needed for the name. Two supervisors on one host (to use the 2-VM cap) must run with distinct --slot (→ -01/-02) or their static names collide. Seeing a lone Offline pulp-<class>-NN row alongside an Idle one is normal — it's a leftover the next reclaim clears.
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Coverage VM lane: three things the build lane didn't need. (1) The label-matched queue scan must cover in_progress runs, not just queued. A Coverage (or Release CLI) run flips to in_progress the moment its GitHub-hosted resolver/classify job starts — before the self-hosted macOS leg is even queued — so a queued-only run scan sees q=0 forever and the VM never boots. tart-runner.sh queued_work and the tartci macOS provider both iterate for st in queued in_progress. (2) Run the coverage agent from $HOME like the build runner (~/.local/bin/tartci serve macos --loop, TART_HOME=$HOME/VMs), NOT a repo checkout on /Volumes — the FDA/Operation not permitted trap above bites the coverage agent too, and the $HOME layout sidesteps it entirely instead of needing Full Disk Access. (3) Cap the coverage supervisor at 1 (TARTCI_MACOS_VM_CAP=1): label isolation (pulp-coverage-vm-macos, never pulp-build/pulp-build-vm) keeps the jobs off the gate, but coverage VMs still share host slots, so the cap is what stops an advisory coverage run from occupying every slot and stalling the required macos gate. Routing var: PULP_COVERAGE_MACOS_RUNS_ON_JSON.
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Cap=1 is necessary but NOT sufficient — a long secondary VM still throttles the gate. Use the priority-aware idle gate. The coverage lane above was backed out 2026-06-16: with shared TART_HOME and cap=1 it booted whenever the host was idle, then held one of the two macOS slots for ~1h, so a required-gate burst (which wants both slots) ran at half throughput and ultimately wedged the gate (launchctl exit 126). cap=1 stops "occupy every slot" but not "hold the slot the gate needs." The fix is the tartci provider's opt-in idle gate: set TARTCI_YIELD_TO_WORKFLOW_NAME (e.g. Build and Test) + TARTCI_YIELD_TO_LABELS (the gate pool) so the secondary lane boots only when the gate has no queued/in-progress work (priority_demand() in providers/tart-macos/runner.sh; preview with serve macos --print-priority-demand; behaviorally tested in tartci/scripts/test_idle_gate.py). Keep the secondary lane on the SAME TART_HOME as the gate so running_macos_vms stays a true host-wide 2-guest semaphore — a separate store hides the secondary VM from the gate's count and lets total guests hit 3 → the 3rd tart run fails on Apple's host-wide cap (and duplicates the ~150GB golden). The same idle gate is how to re-enable coverage safely.
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A lease DENIAL is a capacity report — never answer it with a host-derived bound. tools/ci/governed-build.sh wraps Shipyard's local mac backend (the one path that does NOT go through the pulp CLI, so the CLI's lease integration never sees it). It sizes a lease from tartci host-profile's PULP_BUILD_JOBS; when that is refused, the only safe responses are a smaller lease sized from tartci leases status --json → capacity.non_gate_available_cores, or leaseless at a conservative floor (PULP_GOVERNED_BUILD_MIN_JOBS, default 2). It originally fell back to the tier-0 bound, min(cores, RAM_budget/1.5 GiB) — which reads conservative but is not: on a big-RAM host the memory axis never binds and tier-0 degrades to the full core count, so a refusal was answered by running wider than the request that had just been denied. Observed on the 28-core/96 GB Studio while it served the required macos gate: profile asked 12, store reported 6 free (limit 12, a Tart VM holding 6), denial → leaseless -j28, host load 50 → 68 in ~90 s. Two shell traps make this easy to re-break under set -euo pipefail: a bare [ a -lt b ] && x=… whose test is false returns non-zero and kills the script, and v="$(f)" propagates f's failure the same way — so any capacity probe must return 0 and the comparisons must be full if blocks. The binding limit is the non-gate pool, not available_cores (12 was denied while available_cores was 20 and non-gate was 6). Behavior is pinned by tools/ci/test_governed_build.py (stub tartci on PATH; no compile, no lease store) — registered as the governed-build-selftest ctest, because for a long while nothing under tools/ci/test_*.py ran anywhere, which is how the unbounded fallback shipped in the first place.
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Sanitizer VM lane — the first idle-gate consumer; localize TSan only. tools/launchd/pulp-tart-runner-sanitizer-macos.plist.template (label pulp-sanitizer-vm-macos, workflow Sanitizer Tests, cap=1, shared $HOME/VMs, idle-gate env) serves the advisory sanitizer matrix. Pilot is TSan only: it is the longest leg (scoped -j1 serial, ~45 min on macos-14), the highest-value for the threaded audio model, and single-core-bound so it gains most from a local M-series host. ASan/UBSan stay on macos-15 — the four run in parallel on GitHub but serialize (~4×) on one cap=1 lane, slower than hosted except during a backlog; full parallel local sanitizers need a 3rd host. sanitizers.yml carries --deny-labels pulp-build,pulp-build-vm on the 3 macOS sanitizers so one can never land on the gate pool. Flip PULP_SANITIZER_TSAN_RUNS_ON_JSON only after a workflow_dispatch proof on the lane, one sanitizer at a time behind a measured gate-latency + matrix-wall-clock go/no-go.
Store & hygiene
TART_HOME is declared by the host, never by the repo — hosts with an external build SSD keep the store on a /Volumes mount, hosts on internal storage keep it under $HOME, and both are correct. Exclude it from Spotlight (.metadata_never_index). Tag goldens :<date> + roll :latest. Ephemeral job VMs are deleted after use; confirm cleanup (tart delete fails silently on a running VM — stop → delete → verify). Reclaim with tart-provision.sh list + prune.
