forgefirm/docs/ACCEPTANCE.md

Release acceptance

A ForgeFIRM release is signed and published only when the acceptance catalog passes on the bench machine and the result is committed with the release. This document is the contract: what the gate is, how a campaign runs, how a result stays valid across builds, and what the release pipeline checks.

The pieces

Piece	Where	What it does
forgetest	forgetest/ in this repo; on the dev image as a daemon on HTTP :8090	Runs the catalog against the machine from a self-contained web page, keeps the append-only result log under /data/forgetest/, exports the release artifact, and carries the bench diagnostics page. Never on a release image.
Image manifest	/etc/forgefirm-manifest.json in every image (meta-forgefirm/classes/forgefirm-manifest.bbclass, forgefirm-image-manifest.bbclass)	The build's inputs: for every component the pinned revision and one [path, blob-id] pair per source file, plus the platform identity (machine, kernel revision + config hash, device tree hashes, layer content hashes).
Artifact	releases/v<version>/acceptance.json (+ acceptance.md) committed to this repo, and attached to the GitHub release	What forgetest exported: per catalog test the winning PASS, the fingerprint it ran under, and whether it was inherited. Self-hashed.
Gate	scripts/acceptance-gate.py, called by scripts/release.sh	Recomputes every test's fingerprint from the manifest inside the release rootfs and requires the recorded PASS to match.

The catalog

Every test declares, in code (forgetest/forgetest/suite/*.py):

• kind - auto (no operator), operator (prompts, no emission), or live (laser emission possible: the page requires the eye-protection / fire-watch / exhaust acknowledgment, and the physical arm press is required through the controller's normal path - forgetest never touches the laser latch);
• hardware - api (forgectrl and the controller stay up) or takeover (forgectrl is stopped for the duration; a marker file makes a crash recoverable at the next start);
• covers - the source paths whose content the test stands for, as (component, glob) pairs;
• requires - tests that must be satisfied first (the emission tests require the motion and readback tests);
• always - membership in the always-required core, which is run in every campaign and is never inherited: image health, the kernel latch/safety readbacks, and one live emission witness with the armed-window disarm.

GET /catalog on the tool lists the definitions; the page shows them under each test's details.

Domain fingerprints and inheritance

A test's domain fingerprint is the hash of the (component, path, blob-id) triples its coverage globs select in the image manifest, plus the platform identity, plus the hash of the test's own implementation. A PASS recorded under fingerprint F applies to any build whose recomputed fingerprint is F - the same code computes it on the board and in the gate.

Consequences:

• A change to a covered file invalidates exactly the tests that cover it. A panel-only change reruns the core plus the panel tests, not the cooling drills.
• A platform change (kernel, device tree, a layer's content) invalidates everything.
• A change to a test's implementation invalidates that test's earlier passes and no other.
• "Touched" is computed from content hashes carried in the image, never declared by hand.

Campaigns

A campaign is bound to one image (manifest content hash) and one catalog (catalog hash). The first Start on an image opens one. It stays open until a FAIL (or an erroring test), an invalidate-all, an explicit reset, or a different image or catalog. Reboots into the same image continue it.

For every test, in order:

1. a PASS in the open campaign with the current fingerprint satisfies it;
2. otherwise, if it is not core, the newest PASS anywhere in the history with the current fingerprint and newer than the last invalidate-all is inherited (its origin - run time, image, campaign - is kept and exported);
3. otherwise it is required (reason: always, never-passed, or domain-changed).

Release authorized = a campaign is open and every catalog test is satisfied. There is no SKIP: a test the bench cannot run means the release cannot be authorized (that is a catalog change, not a skip).

Invalidate all (page footer, reason required) records that the bench itself changed - new tube, driver swap, cable work, a judgment call - and forces a full campaign; nothing before it can be inherited.

Running a campaign

1. Boot the dev image on the bench (forgefirm-image-dev), open http://<machine>:8090/.
2. The banner shows the image, the manifest identity, and Release authorized. Tests marked required need to run; inherited ones do not.
3. Start the required tests. operator tests ask questions in the run pane; live tests need the acknowledgment and the physical arm press; takeover tests stop forgectrl for the duration.
4. When Release authorized: YES, Export release artifact, download acceptance.json and acceptance.md, and commit them as releases/v<version>/acceptance.json and .md.

The raw log (/data/forgetest/results.jsonl, Raw log in the footer) is the bench's own record; the artifact is the release's.

The gate

scripts/release.sh <version> builds the release image, reads /etc/forgefirm-manifest.json out of the release rootfs and runs

scripts/acceptance-gate.py releases/v<version>/acceptance.json <manifest>

which requires: the artifact self-hash intact; authorized: true; the catalog in the tree identical to the artifact's; for every test a recorded PASS whose fingerprint equals the one recomputed from the release manifest; inherited results not core and newer than the invalidate epoch. Any problem dies before signing. FORGEFIRM_ACCEPTANCE_SKIP=1 bypasses the gate deliberately and prints a loud warning; it is never the default. The artifact is staged and attached to the GitHub release next to forgefirm.fw.

Because the dev image and the release image are built from the same tree in one bitbake invocation, their manifests share the same identity; a pin bumped after the campaign shows up as a fingerprint mismatch on exactly the tests that cover it.

Coverage currency rule

Every change is evaluated against the catalog, in addition to its unit tests:

1. does an existing test exercise the changed behavior - if not, add or extend one in the same change;
2. does that test's covers map name the files touched - if not, widen it in the same change.

A behavior change with no catalog consequence needs a sentence of justification in the commit message. Coverage gaps are defects: under the domain model an uncovered path lets an inherited PASS stay valid across a change that should have invalidated it.

The mechanical floor is the coverage lint,

python3 -m forgetest.coverage --manifest <manifest.json> [--enforce]

which lists every manifest path no test covers, minus the allowlist of non-behavioral paths in forgetest/forgetest/coverage.py (docs, CI, tests, licenses). CI (forgetest-ci.yml) runs it on a manifest generated from the recipe pins with scripts/manifest-from-tree.py (no Yocto build needed) and fails the job on any uncovered path. On the board, run it against /etc/forgefirm-manifest.json. The lint proves a file is fingerprinted; whether the test exercises the change is the change author's judgment (rule 1).

Bench diagnostics page

The same daemon serves #bench: the registry of the bench tools (scripts/bench, installed under /usr/share/forgetest/bench/), each with its safety class (dry, takeover, live, scope), argument form, and last run. A ported tool runs as a subprocess with the output on the page; unported tools are listed with Start disabled. Bench runs are recorded in /data/forgetest/bench.jsonl and never enter a campaign.

Layout

forgetest/forgetest/         the package (stdlib only)
  manifest.py                manifest, globs, fingerprints, coverage report
  catalog.py                 @test registry, catalog hash
  campaign.py                the rules (pure functions)
  artifact.py                export + gate verification
  runner.py                  one run at a time, prompts, abort, takeover
  server.py / page.py        HTTP API + the page (forgectrl's access rules)
  bench.py / coverage.py     bench registry + subprocess runner; the lint
  suite/                     the catalog, one module per subsystem
forgetest/tests/             host unit tests (python3 -m unittest discover -s tests)
scripts/acceptance-gate.py   the gate
scripts/manifest-from-tree.py  manifest from the recipe pins (CI, workstation)
releases/v<version>/         the committed artifacts