Authenticated visual-regression suite (full leg) broken in CI — and the gate doesn't catch it

[Danswar]

Summary

The full matrix leg of the Visual Regression workflow (e2e/visual/authenticated.test.ts) has never passed in CI. It was introduced in #186 and merged without the leg ever going green — possible because the check is non-required and only runs on PR open/label (not on pushes). Two distinct bugs block it: the first is fixed and validated locally; the second needs a small test redesign.

Symptom

• Job: iOS Visual Regression (full). Example failing run: https://github.com/DFXswiss/dfx-wallet/actions/runs/27835644312
• Onboard (PIN + legal) → reaches the dashboard times out; every later authenticated block (Settings, Seed export, Hardware connect, Multi-sig ×2) then cascade-fails on verify-pin-screen, because the wallet the blocks reuse was never created.
• The 2 passkey screens (no wallet init) pass.

Root cause #1 — onboard hang (FIXED, validated locally)

On "Continue", app/(onboarding)/create-wallet.tsx calls WDK restoreWallet() and only navigates to setup-pin after it resolves. WDK initializes all 8 configured chains (ethereum/arbitrum/polygon/base/spark/bitcoin/plasma/sepolia) on first wallet setup, each with its own RPC/bundler round-trips. On a fresh CI simulator this exceeds the test timeout (observed: 225 s, still unfinished). The suite's own German handbook entry already documents "WDK-Init nach Continue … bis zu 120 s".

Fix: gate the chain set behind an allowlist env var so the E2E build inits a minimal set. Production is unaffected — the allowlist only applies when the env var is set.

src/config/chains.ts — split the network object into buildAllNetworks() and filter:

export const getWdkConfigs = (): WdkConfigs => {
  const networks = buildAllNetworks();
  const allow = process.env.EXPO_PUBLIC_WDK_CHAINS?.split(',')
    .map((id: string) => id.trim())
    .filter(Boolean);
  if (!allow?.length) return { networks }; // unset → all chains (prod)
  const filtered = Object.fromEntries(
    Object.entries(networks).filter(([id]) => allow.includes(id)),
  ) as WdkConfigs['networks'];
  return { networks: filtered };
};

.env.testnet:

EXPO_PUBLIC_WDK_CHAINS=sepolia,bitcoin

Local validation (iOS release build, iPhone 17 Pro sim): with the trim, Onboard (PIN + legal) → reaches the dashboard completes in ~43 s (was hanging > 180 s). Passkey + onboard tests pass.

Root cause #2 — relaunch + PIN-unlock hang (NOT yet fixed)

Once a wallet exists, the WDK worklet keeps the app's JS thread continuously busy — the app never goes "idle" (the suite header comment acknowledges this: "the WDK keeps the main queue busy"). The per-screen pattern relaunchToDashboard() cold-restarts the app and re-enters the PIN. Detox waits for the app to be idle during:

• device.launchApp() — synchronization is re-enabled on every new instance (per Detox docs), and
• enterPin() — which calls device.enableSynchronization().

So both block indefinitely (observed > 13 min stuck on Run loop "JS Run Loop" is awake). The Android launch arg that starts an instance with synchronization disabled (detoxEnableSynchronization) does not exist on iOS, so this is not a one-line fix.

Proposed fix (option A): restructure the suite to onboard once and navigate screen-to-screen without relaunching, keeping synchronization disabled throughout (exactly as the onboard flow already does successfully). Alternatives: (B) make the app idle in the E2E build by gating WDK/balance background activity — uncertain, since the busyness is the worklet itself, not just the 30 s balance refetch; (C) keep relaunch but drive launch + PIN-unlock fully sync-disabled.

Why CI didn't catch this (the gate hole)

The Visual Regression check is:

• not a required check, so a red run never blocks merge; and
• configured to skip pushes (types: [opened, reopened, ready_for_review, labeled] — no synchronize), so it doesn't run on iterative commits.

That combination let #186 merge a suite that had never passed, with the PR showing green. Recommendation: once the suite is fixed and proven stable, make it required and run it on push. Tradeoff: it's a ~30-min macOS build, so any flakiness would block merges — a team decision, not a pure win.

Next steps

• Land root-cause Fix CI pipeline: TypeScript, ESLint, Prettier #1 fix (chain allowlist) — diff validated locally
• Fix root-cause Add auto-release PR workflow #2 (relaunch / unlock hang) — option A (onboard once, navigate without relaunch)
• Re-baseline if a screen changed, confirm the full leg goes fully green
• Decide gate policy (make the leg required? run on push?)

References

• Suite introduced: ci: enforce test gates — coverage floor, feature matrix, supply chain, PR policy #186 (merged 2026-06-19)
• Surfaced while triaging CI on: fix(hardware-wallet): WASM-Bridge-Timer bei Antwort und destroy clearen #188
• Failing run: https://github.com/DFXswiss/dfx-wallet/actions/runs/27835644312

[joshuakrueger-dfx]

Root cause: it's a wallet-creation hang, not a timeout

Confirmed against the latest develop (which already includes the #190 timeout bump to 5 min):

Visual Regression (full variant) > Onboard (PIN + legal): reaches the dashboard [FAIL]
  Test Failed: Timed out while waiting for expectation:
  TOBEVISIBLE WITH MATCHER(id == "setup-pin-screen") TIMEOUT(5m)
Tests: 8 failed, 2 passed, 10 total
Snapshots: 2 passed, 2 total

What this rules out:

• Not a timeout problem — setup-pin-screen never appears even at the 5-minute wait fix(e2e): green the authenticated visual-regression suite (#189) #190 introduced. The full-feature build hangs during fresh wallet creation after create-wallet-continue-button, so the screen never renders.
• Not a golden/baseline problem — the 2 snapshots the flow does reach (the passkey onboarding screens, which run before the PIN wallet exists) pass. Nothing ever diffs; the suite dies before screenshotting.
• Not caused by the screens under test — the very first step (onboardToDashboard) never completes, so Settings / Seed-export / Hardware-connect / Multi-sig all cascade-fail off the missing dashboard.

So the failure is upstream of the visual assertions: the WDK wallet init / onboarding navigation hangs only in the all-flags-on full build (the mvp build skips the PIN+legal block and is green). This is why the leg has been red since #186 and on develop's own nightly — and why the #190 timeout bump didn't move it.

Meanwhile: quarantine so it stops reddening every PR

#198 sets continue-on-error on just the full leg. It does not fix this issue — it stops a non-required, never-green job from painting every unrelated PR (every Dependabot bump) red. mvp stays a hard signal. Please remove the quarantine once the wallet-creation hang here is resolved.

[joshuakrueger-dfx]

Reopening: #190 closed this, but the latest develop run shows the full leg is still red — the timeout bump didn't address the underlying wallet-creation hang (details in the comment above). Tracking quarantine: #198.