verify

name	verify
description	Stand up the real mock-HA + backend E2E stack locally and drive it to observe a change working, instead of just running tests.

BESS Manager local E2E verification

Use docker-compose.ci.yml (works with podman-compose) to run the real backend against a scripted mock Home Assistant instance, then hit the actual HTTP API (or load the served frontend) to observe the change.

One-time setup

• podman-compose isn't always on PATH: pip install --user podman-compose, then add ~/Library/Python/<ver>/bin to PATH for the shell session. podman compose (the built-in plugin) does NOT work here — it looks for a docker-compose/podman-compose binary and fails without one.
• Backend container serves the frontend from a bind-mounted frontend/dist (./frontend/dist:/app/frontend:ro). Build it first or the container crashes on StaticFiles init: cd frontend && npm run build.

Bring the stack up

Use a unique project name (-p) and non-default ports so it doesn't collide with another worktree's running stack:

SCENARIO=ci-normal-day BESS_PORT=18180 MOCK_HA_PORT=18123 \
  podman-compose -p <unique-name> -f docker-compose.ci.yml up -d --build

Wait for both containers healthy (podman ps --filter name=<unique-name>), then hit the real API:

curl -s http://localhost:18180/api/system-health
curl -s http://localhost:18180/api/dashboard-health-summary

Driving live sensor changes

scripts/mock_ha/server.py exposes POST /mock/update_sensor/{entity_id} to mutate a sensor's state on the running mock-HA at any time (no restart needed) — this is the way to observe a transition (e.g. a sensor going unavailable then recovering) through the real system, since a fresh container/process has no "previous" state to transition from:

curl -s -X POST http://localhost:18123/mock/update_sensor/number.growatt_battery_charging_power_rate \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"state": "unavailable", "attributes": {...}}'
curl -s -X POST http://localhost:18180/api/system-health/recheck   # observe the break
curl -s -X POST http://localhost:18123/mock/update_sensor/number.growatt_battery_charging_power_rate \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"state": "100", "attributes": {...}}'
curl -s -X POST http://localhost:18180/api/system-health/recheck   # observe the recovery

Get the full current sensor snapshot with GET /mock/sensors on the mock-HA port to find real entity IDs/attributes to restore.

Gotchas

• ${BESS_SETTINGS:-./e2e/ci-bess-settings.json} is mounted read-write (no :ro). Running the app against it can silently write settings back into the fixture (schema migrations, demo_mode defaults, etc). After tearing down: git diff -- e2e/ and git checkout -- e2e/ if the only changes are ones you didn't intend.
• Many scenarios (e.g. ci-wizard-entsoe.json) pin mock_time to a fixed past date (ci-normal-day.json → 2025-01-15), not "today" — the real container clock is today's date, so date-anchored service calls (Nordpool get_prices_for_date) mismatch and the DP scheduler logs "No prices for ". backend/Dockerfile.dev installs libfaketime for this; recreate the bess container manually (not via compose) with -e LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/faketime/libfaketime.so.1 -e FAKETIME="2025-01-15 12:00:00" and the same network/volumes/env, confirm with podman exec <container> date. Note this only helps a fresh process — it won't recover in-memory state accumulated before the restart (e.g. a pending health-check transition), since restarting always wipes process memory.
• Verifying a bundled frontend UI string without a browser: fetch the served JS bundle and grep for the new text — curl -s http://localhost:<port>/ | grep -o '/assets/main-[^"]*\.js' then curl -s http://localhost:<port><that path> | grep -o '<new UI string>' confirms the exact deployed artifact contains the change, even without a headless browser available.
• Tear down: podman-compose -p <unique-name> -f docker-compose.ci.yml down.

Mock-HA entity registry

Only exposed via WebSocket (config/entity_registry/list), not REST — to verify registry-based sensor discovery, go through the real backend endpoint that calls it (e.g. POST /api/setup/discover) rather than curling mock-HA directly.