Charon/docs/plans/current_spec.md

# E2E Test Failure Diagnosis - Skip Security Tests

**Issue**: E2E tests failing across all shards in CI. Need to isolate whether security features (ACL, rate limiting) are the root cause.
**Status**: 🔴 ACTIVE - Planning Phase
**Priority**: 🔴 CRITICAL - Blocking all CI
**Created**: 2026-01-26

---

## 🔍 Problem Analysis

### Current Test Architecture
The Playwright configuration has a strict dependency chain:

```
setup (auth) → security-tests → security-teardown → browser tests (chromium/firefox/webkit)
```

**Key Components:**
1. **setup**: Creates authenticated user and stores session
2. **security-tests**: Sequential tests that enable ACL, WAF, CrowdSec, rate limiting - verifies they block correctly
3. **security-teardown**: Disables all security modules via API or emergency endpoint
4. **browser tests**: Main test suites that depend on security being disabled

### Observed Failures
- **Shard 3**: `account-settings.spec.ts:289` - "should validate certificate email format"
- **Shard 4**: `user-management.spec.ts:948` - "should resend invite for pending user"
- **Pattern**: Tests that create/modify resources are failing

### Hypothesis
Two possible root causes:
1. **Security tests are failing/hanging** - blocking browser tests from running
2. **Security teardown is failing** - leaving ACL/rate limiting enabled, which blocks subsequent API calls in browser tests

---

## 🛠️ Remediation Strategy

### Approach: Temporary Security Test Bypass

**Goal**: Skip the entire security-tests project and its teardown to determine if security features are causing the failures.

**Implementation**: Modify `playwright.config.js` to:
1. Comment out the `security-tests` project
2. Comment out the `security-teardown` project
3. Remove `'security-tests'` from the dependencies of browser projects
4. Keep the `setup` project active (authentication still needed)

### Changes Required

**File**: `playwright.config.js`

- Comment out lines 151-169 (security-tests project)
- Comment out lines 171-174 (security-teardown project)
- Remove `'security-tests'` from dependencies arrays on lines 182, 193, 203

---

## ✅ Expected Outcomes

### If Tests Pass
- **Confirms**: Security features (ACL/rate limiting) are the root cause
- **Next Step**: Investigate why security-teardown is failing or incomplete
- **Triage**: Focus on security-teardown.setup.ts and emergency reset endpoint

### If Tests Still Fail
- **Confirms**: Issue is NOT related to security features
- **Next Step**: Investigate Docker environment, database state, or test data isolation
- **Triage**: Focus on test-data-manager.ts, database persistence, or environment setup

---

## 🚦 Rollback Strategy

Once diagnosis is complete, restore the full test suite:

```bash
# Revert playwright.config.js changes
git checkout playwright.config.js

# Run full test suite including security
npx playwright test
```

---

## 📋 Implementation Checklist

- [x] Modify playwright.config.js to comment out security projects
- [x] Remove security-tests dependency from browser projects
- [x] Fix Go cache path in e2e-tests.yml workflow
- [x] Optimize global-setup.ts to prevent hanging on emergency reset
- [x] Fix E2E coverage generation (remove --reporter override)
- [x] Disable E2E coverage collection (remove Vite dev server)
- [ ] Commit with clear diagnostic message
- [ ] Trigger CI run
- [ ] Analyze results and document findings
- [ ] Restore security tests once diagnosis complete
- [ ] Re-evaluate E2E coverage strategy (Vite vs Docker vs separate job)

---

## 🔧 Additional Fixes Applied

### Go Cache Dependency Path Fix

**Issue**: The `build` job in e2e-tests.yml was failing with:
```
Restore cache failed: Dependencies file is not found in /home/runner/work/Charon/Charon. Supported file pattern: go.sum
```

**Root Cause**: The `actions/setup-go` action with `cache: true` was looking for `go.sum` in the repository root, but the Go module is located in the `backend/` subdirectory.

**Fix**: Added `cache-dependency-path: backend/go.sum` to the setup-go step:

```yaml
- name: Set up Go
  uses: actions/setup-go@7a3fe6cf4cb3a834922a1244abfce67bcef6a0c5 # v6
  with:
    go-version: ${{ env.GO_VERSION }}
    cache: true
    cache-dependency-path: backend/go.sum  # ← Added this line
```

**Impact**: The Go module cache will now properly restore, speeding up the build process by ~30-60 seconds per run.

### Global Setup Optimization (Hanging Prevention)

**Issue**: Shards were hanging after the "Skipping authenticated security reset" message during global-setup.ts execution.

**Root Cause**:
1. Emergency security reset API calls had no timeout - could hang indefinitely
2. 2-second propagation delay after each reset (called twice = 4+ seconds)
3. Pre-auth reset was being attempted even on fresh containers where it's unnecessary

**Fixes Applied**:
1. **Added 5-second timeout** to emergency reset API calls to prevent indefinite hangs
2. **Reduced propagation delay** from 2000ms to 500ms (fresh containers don't need long waits)
3. **Skip pre-auth reset in CI** when using default test token (fresh containers start clean)

**Before**:
```typescript
const response = await requestContext.post('/api/v1/emergency/security-reset', {
  headers: { 'X-Emergency-Token': emergencyToken },
  // No timeout - could hang forever
});
// ...
await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 2000)); // 2s wait
```

**After**:
```typescript
const response = await requestContext.post('/api/v1/emergency/security-reset', {
  headers: { 'X-Emergency-Token': emergencyToken },
  timeout: 5000, // 5s timeout prevents hanging
});
// ...
await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, 500)); // 500ms wait
```

**Impact**:
- ✅ Prevents shards from hanging on global-setup
- ✅ Reduces global-setup time by ~3-4 seconds per shard
- ✅ Skips unnecessary emergency reset on fresh CI containers
### E2E Coverage Generation Fix

**Issue**: Coverage files were not being generated, causing upload artifact warning:
```
Warning: No files were found with the provided path: coverage/e2e/. No artifacts will be uploaded.
```

**Root Cause**: The workflow was overriding reporters with `--reporter=html,json,github`, which excluded the `@bgotink/playwright-coverage` reporter configured in `playwright.config.js`.

**Fix**: Removed the `--reporter` flag from the test execution command, allowing `playwright.config.js` to control reporters:

**Before**:
```bash
npx playwright test \
  --project=${{ matrix.browser }} \
  --shard=${{ matrix.shard }}/${{ matrix.total-shards }} \
  --reporter=html,json,github  # ← This overrode config
```

**After**:
```bash
npx playwright test \
  --project=${{ matrix.browser }} \
  --shard=${{ matrix.shard }}/${{ matrix.total-shards }}
  # Uses reporters from playwright.config.js (includes coverage)
```

**Impact**:
- ✅ E2E coverage will now be generated in `coverage/e2e/`
- ✅ Coverage artifacts will upload successfully
- ✅ Codecov will receive E2E coverage data for frontend code

**UPDATE**: Coverage generation has been **temporarily disabled** to isolate test failures.

### E2E Coverage Disabled (Diagnostic)

**Issue**: Tests were running against Vite dev server (port 5173) for coverage collection, adding significant overhead and complexity.

**Hypothesis**: The dual-environment setup (Docker + Vite) may be causing test instability or failures.

**Changes Applied**:
1. **Removed Vite dev server setup** - No longer starts frontend dev server
2. **Removed frontend dependency installation** - Saves ~60s per shard
3. **Changed PLAYWRIGHT_BASE_URL** - Now points directly to Docker container (localhost:8080)
4. **Disabled coverage artifacts** - Removed E2E coverage upload steps
5. **Disabled upload-coverage job** - Marked with `if: false`

**Before**:
```yaml
- name: Install Frontend Dependencies
  run: cd frontend && npm ci

- name: Start Vite dev server for coverage
  run: npx vite --port 5173 &

env:
  PLAYWRIGHT_BASE_URL: http://localhost:5173  # Vite with source maps
```

**After**:
```yaml
# Frontend deps removed - not needed
# Vite server removed - not needed

env:
  PLAYWRIGHT_BASE_URL: http://localhost:8080  # Direct to Docker
```

**Impact**:
- ✅ **~60-90 seconds faster** per shard (no frontend install + Vite startup)
- ✅ **Simpler architecture** - single environment (Docker only)
- ✅ **Matches local testing** - tests against production-like container
- ⚠️ **No E2E coverage** - will need to re-enable after diagnosis

**If Tests Pass**: The Vite/coverage setup was causing issues. Can either:
1. Keep coverage disabled for speed
2. Create separate coverage-only job (non-sharded)
3. Investigate and fix Vite setup issues

**If Tests Still Fail**: Issue is not related to coverage/Vite - deeper investigation needed.