prow-artifacts

name	prow-artifacts
description	Download Prow CI job artifacts for analysis. Understands Prow artifact structure, so is more efficient than manual fetching. Use when user provides a prow URL, asks about CI job results (pass or fail), mentions a PR's test results (pass or fail), or wants to examine CI logs.

Dredge

Download Prow CI job artifacts with dredge and make them available for analysis.

Invoking dredge

Run dredge via uvx — no installation required. All dredge commands in this document use the short form dredge. Prefix every invocation with the following uvx --from argument:

uvx --from 'git+https://github.com/openshift-eng/dredge@main'

For example, where this document says dredge pr <url>, run uvx --from '...' dredge pr <url>.

Quick start

1. Identify the mode from user input
2. Run dredge with -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" to download
3. Read .dredge/<build_id>/steps.json to see what ran

Resolving the target

The user may not provide a URL directly. If they reference "this PR", "my PR", a PR number, or CI failures on the current branch, resolve it to a GitHub PR URL first:

# From a branch name
gh pr list --head <branch> --json url --jq '.[0].url'

# From a PR number
gh pr view <number> --json url --jq '.url'

# Current branch
gh pr view --json url --jq '.url'

Then proceed with the resolved URL using dredge pr.

Determine mode

User input	Command
GitHub PR URL (github.com/org/repo/pull/N)	dredge pr
Prow Spyglass URL(s) containing /view/gs/	dredge import
Prow job-history URL containing /job-history/	dredge history

Working directory

Always use .dredge in the current working directory. Pass as an absolute path via -d.

Download commands

# PR — downloads all failed jobs for the PR
dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" pr <github_pr_url>

# Specific Spyglass URLs
dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" import <url> [<url> ...]

# Job history — most recent N failures
dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" history <job_history_url> <count>

# To also download must-gather artifacts during import, add --auto-must-gather
dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" pr --auto-must-gather <github_pr_url>

After import

Each build creates a directory .dredge/<build_id>/ containing:

• job.json — build metadata: spyglass link, build ID, job name, PR link, GCS path
• steps.json — hierarchical step structure with status and type for each step

Always read steps.json first. It shows every step that ran, its status (passed, failed, or skipped), its type (build or test), and for multi-phase tests, the substeps nested under a parent step. Example structure:

Note: dredge pr only downloads artifacts from failed steps. If you need artifacts from passed steps (e.g., test logs when a validation step failed), use the step-specific commands documented below.

{
  "src": { "status": "passed", "type": "build" },
  "azure-cloud-controller-manager": { "status": "failed", "type": "build" },
  "e2e-azure-ovn-upgrade": {
    "status": "skipped",
    "type": "test",
    "substeps": {
      "setup": { "status": "skipped" },
      "test": { "status": "skipped" }
    }
  }
}

Step types

• build — image builds (e.g. src, bin, named images like azure-cloud-controller-manager). Build failures indicate compilation or Dockerfile errors. Build step logs are the top-level ci-operator log, not a per-step log. Build steps have no artifacts directory.
• test — multi-stage tests and container tests. These have per-step logs and artifacts.

Step status

• passed — step executed successfully
• failed — step executed and failed
• skipped — step never ran (a dependency failed before it could start)

Step directories

Each downloaded step has a directory at .dredge/<build_id>/<parent_step>/<step_name>/ containing a build-log.txt with the direct output of that step.

• Build steps (e.g. src, bin, named images): the log is a symlink to the top-level ci-operator log. Search for the step name in this log to find relevant build output. Build steps have no artifacts/ directory.
• Test steps (e.g. test): the log usually contains everything you need — test output, failure messages, stack traces.
• Artifact-gathering steps (e.g. gather-must-gather, gather-extra): the log is usually not interesting. The value is in the artifacts, located under artifacts/ within the step directory.

Downloading artifacts from specific steps

After importing, you can download artifacts from ANY step (passed or failed):

# List available artifacts for a step
dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" step-ls <build_id> <step_path>

# Download build log for a step
dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" step-log <build_id> <step_path>

# Download a specific artifact
dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" step-get <build_id> <step_path> -p <artifact_path>

# Download an entire directory recursively
dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" step-get <build_id> <step_path> -p <artifact_dir> -r

Example: Download test logs from a passed test step:

# List what's available
dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" step-ls 2056305481017724928 regression-clusterinfra-azure-ipi-mapi/openshift-extended-test

# Get the test log
dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" step-get 2056305481017724928 regression-clusterinfra-azure-ipi-mapi/openshift-extended-test -p artifacts/extended.log

Downloading must-gather separately

If must-gather was not downloaded during import, fetch it explicitly:

dredge -d "$(pwd)/.dredge" fetch-must-gather <build_id>

JUnit test results

Root-level JUnit XML files (junit_operator.xml, prowjob_junit.xml) are automatically downloaded during import. Step-level JUnit files are downloaded for failing steps.

Blocking, informing, and flaky

Prow classifies test results into three categories. Blocking failures are the ones that cause the job to fail — always start a failure analysis here.

• Blocking — Tests with <property name="lifecycle" value="blocking"/> or no lifecycle property. If any blocking test fails, the job fails. These are the most important in a failure analysis.
• Informing — Tests with <property name="lifecycle" value="informing"/>. These do not cause the job to fail even if they fail. They provide signal about features in development or known issues.
• Flaky — When a test name appears more than once within a single JUnit XML file (one entry with <failure>, one without), Spyglass counts it as flaky rather than failed. Flaky tests do not cause job failure even if they have blocking lifecycle. This is common in e2e-monitor-tests XML files but can also occur in junit_e2e files.

Lifecycle properties only exist in junit_e2e__*.xml files. Other JUnit files (e2e-monitor-tests, junit_operator.xml, etc.) have no lifecycle properties — all their tests are implicitly blocking.

Key JUnit files

• junit_e2e__*.xml — Individual e2e test results (pass/fail for each [sig-*] test). This is the primary file for identifying which e2e tests failed.
• e2e-monitor-tests__*.xml — Monitor and invariant test results. These catch cluster-level problems like pathologically repeating events, alert firing, and disruption. Failures use a different format than standard e2e tests — they appear as <testcase> entries with <failure> elements, not in build-log grep output.
• junit_operator.xml — ci-operator's record of step-level pass/fail. Redundant with steps.json but included for completeness.
• junit_e2e_analysis__*.xml — Post-test cluster health checks produced by gather-extra: machine state, node readiness, operator conditions. Only interesting if they fail.
• junit_symptoms.xml — Symptom detectors produced by gather-extra: panic detection, segfaults, quota exhaustion. Only interesting if they fail.

Filtering JUnit XML

Use dredge junit-filter to reduce JUnit XML to only the tests you care about. The output is structurally identical JUnit XML — same schema, same hierarchy — with excluded testcases removed and suite counters updated. This is the most efficient way to read only the failures that matter.

# Most common: get only the blocking, non-flaky failures that caused the job to fail
dredge junit-filter --status=failed --lifecycle=blocking --no-flaky <junit_file>

# Get only informing test failures
dredge junit-filter --status=failed --lifecycle=informing <junit_file>

# Remove flaky tests from any JUnit file
dredge junit-filter --no-flaky <junit_file>

# Read from stdin
cat <junit_file> | dredge junit-filter --status=failed -

Filters:

• --status=failed|passed|skipped — filter by test result
• --lifecycle=blocking|informing — filter by lifecycle property (tests without a lifecycle property are treated as blocking)
• --no-flaky — exclude flaky tests (same test name with both pass and fail entries in the same suite). Flaky tests do not cause job failure.

When analysing a test failure, always start with:

dredge junit-filter --status=failed --lifecycle=blocking --no-flaky <junit_file>

This gives you exactly the failures that caused the job to fail — no informing noise, no flaky noise.

Known substeps

Substep	Type	Description	Guide
gather-must-gather	Artifact collection	OpenShift cluster diagnostic snapshot: node state, resource dumps, etcd health, operator logs, networking diagnostics	gather-must-gather
gather-extra	Artifact collection	Post-test cluster analysis: produces junit_e2e_analysis and junit_symptoms XML files with cluster health checks