test: shared-process workspace gate fails on main while nextest CI passes #6698

Observed on clean upstream main

The shared-process full-workspace gate is red on clean main@0bfe04e163e16ecd583a7f771ee2cd787cd6ff27, after integration PR #6672. No FEAT-029 commits or edits are in this checkout. This is an observed failure on the merged source, not a claim that #6672 caused every failure.

The fixes from #6666 are present: 45017fa532bf6bb45b11b0b4d77aa4ad1b2d6258 is an ancestor of main, its four changes remain in source, and all corresponding affected tests passed in this run. The current nine failing identities have zero overlap with the original nine FEAT-029 Phase 8 failures. Earlier baseline repairs #6581/#6666 are not missing or reverted.

Exact reproduction and result

# From a clean checkout of the revision above. Use a short, private TMPDIR.
DiagnosticTmpDir=$(mktemp -d /var/tmp/cw29m.XXXXXX)
TMPDIR="$DiagnosticTmpDir" sh scripts/with-hermetic-test-home.sh cargo test --workspace --all-features --locked -- --format=pretty

Environment: Linux 7.0.0-31-generic x86_64, Rust 1.98.0 (88d9e12ae 2026-08-18), 28 logical CPUs, default libtest concurrency, no custom RUSTFLAGS/CARGO_TARGET_DIR/test-thread override, fresh hermetic HOME. Cargo commands ran strictly sequentially. The wrapper sets RUST_MIN_STACK=16777216. TMPDIR is on the disk filesystem with ample space and inodes.

Native result:

test result: FAILED. 13792 passed; 9 failed; 20 ignored; 0 measured; 0 filtered out; finished in 322.04s
error: test failed, to rerun pass `-p codewhale-tui --lib`

Cargo exited 101 and stopped at the TUI library; later integration targets and doctests were not reached.

Failing identities:

• remote_control::tests::classic_recovery_uses_persisted_seq_floor_and_ignores_older_terminal
• remote_control::tests::actual_start_reclaims_runtime_chat_writer_before_worker_spawn
• remote_control::tests::separate_predispatch_crashes_on_one_run_get_distinct_recovery_turn_ids
• runtime_api::tests::events_endpoint_respects_since_seq_cursor
• runtime_threads::tests::approval_required_awaits_external_decision_allow
• runtime_threads::tests::approval_remember_grants_tool_class_without_changing_posture
• tools::subagent::budget_handback_tests::budget_handback_inflight_wall_timeout_persists_unreported_usage
• tools::subagent::tests::child_permission_gate::wall_deadline_ends_pending_wait_with_receipt
• tools::subagent::tests::resume_keeps_recorded_reasoning_in_manifest_and_request_after_parent_changes

The captured failure stdout in this run includes timed out waiting for terminal turn status for events_endpoint_respects_since_seq_cursor. The native output did not retain stdout blocks for the other eight failures; those errors are not invented.

Controlled comparisons, with all outcomes retained

• A preceding run on the same source reported 13,783 passed; 18 failed; 20 ignored. Eight failures were a diagnostic runner mistake: a long TMPDIR made Unix socket paths exceed SUN_LEN. A controlled repeat changed only TMPDIR to a short path. All eight socket cases then passed; the nine failures above remained. That first result is retained, not counted as a valid socket regression.
• That preceding run also recorded classic-journal reopen errors: This saved session still owns an unfinished account turn in its original workspace; reconnect that workspace or create a new local session. The affected journal identities differed across runs.
• Other preceding failure evidence: child approval prompt Elapsed(()); budget-handback result missing the expected in-flight wall-time exhaustion reason; a crash-dump fixture observed two files instead of one; an active-workspace restore fixture received 500 instead of 409. These describe that preceding run, not missing stdout invented for the second.
• All 14 distinct non-socket failing identities across both runs passed together in a narrower --exact selection on the same workspace-built binary: 14 passed; 0 failed; 13807 filtered out, 4.01s.
• The entire remote-control module passed on that same binary under syscall tracing: 82 passed; 0 failed; 13739 filtered out, 2.01s. The failing journal mechanism did not reproduce in this narrower selection.
• These narrower green runs do not invalidate either full-suite failure. No retry-until-green, test removal, assertion weakening, or gate change was performed.

Why the CI test result differs

The CI test step runs:

sh scripts/with-hermetic-test-home.sh cargo nextest run --workspace --all-features --locked --profile ci

It separately runs workspace doctests. Nextest gives each test its own process; the requested libtest gate shares process globals across concurrent tests. The configured nextest profiles disable retries and have explicit integration concurrency groups. The difference is runner isolation/scheduling, not an absent #6666 patch.

The nextest configuration still declares the shared-process Cargo command authoritative for release. No workflow step runs that complete shared-process workspace gate. This discrepancy deserves an explicit maintainer decision about CI coverage; a nextest PASS does not establish a libtest PASS.

Integration CI run 36393467574 completed successfully, including Linux/macOS/Windows tests. Its head 2ea48583cde64ee84ab4b1bbb7e8357cbecaebcc and merged main have the same source tree 0074786dfb86ffcc01ab13ab6497173f3615cf7f. The Linux Run tests step is recorded SUCCESS. The GitHub CLI log request returned an empty log, so this report does not claim individual nextest PASS lines for the nine names. GitGuardian is a separate failed check on #6672 and is not the explanation for these Rust outcomes.

Diagnostic leads, not established causes

• Approval tests can see the process-wide 25 ms test timeout override without holding its guard. test(tui): restore full Linux workspace gate after main updates #6666 guarded the heartbeat fixture; the two newly failing approval fixtures do not take that guard. Reproduce controlled interference before choosing a repair.
• ClassicSessionOwnerLock closes its descriptor on Drop but does not explicitly unlock, whereas the relay/runtime store owner locks do. A controlled Linux experiment demonstrates a forked child can retain the flock through a duplicated pre-exec descriptor after the parent closes it. This is only a mechanism consistent with the journal errors; an actual product failure trace or a faithful deterministic reproducer is still needed.
• The child wall-deadline fixture starts a 300 ms timer before it establishes that the approval prompt was durably emitted; investigate readiness under full-suite scheduling.
• Keep timing, global environment/catalog state and shared fixture output separate from product behavior. Historical closed Flaky test: runtime_chat_relay failed_state_writes…exact_retry_reopens fails under CI parallel load (owner-lock conflict) #5735/Parallel-execution flakes in the codewhale-tui lib suite (tracking): six tests that fail under load and pass in isolation #5929 contain related reports but do not establish this run's cause or resolution.

Intended outcome and acceptance criteria

1. Establish the cause of each remaining failed identity using controlled selection/order/interference or deterministic reproduction; preserve failing and passing outcomes and distinguish hypotheses from causal evidence.
2. Repair the identified product or fixture causes with affected tests and safety/data-integrity assertions retained. Do not ignore tests, reduce the selected gate, cap threads to hide a race, or substitute isolated/nextest passes for the shared-process result.
3. Run the exact shared-process full-workspace command on one fixed source revision with equivalent documented conditions; require two complete passing runs and explicit executed results for all nine identities. Any new failure stays recorded and unresolved.
4. Pass the existing CI runner/profile and resolve actionable findings; make the authoritative-gate/CI coverage difference explicit without silently changing acceptance or weakening gates.

Local evidence is retained separately from earlier diagnostics at evidence/postmerge-2026-09-28/ in the FEAT-029 MemoryBank: main-full-workspace-01.log/.json, main-full-workspace-02.log/.json, main-failure-outcomes.json, main-failing-identities-isolated-01.log/.json, main-remote-control-trace-02.log/.json/.strace, linux-flock-inheritance-experiment.json, and merged-main-validation-report.md. These files are local evidence, not links falsely represented as public artifacts. The available native failure details and exact commands are included above so the report is reviewable without access to that directory. FEAT-029 remains unchanged pending a verified baseline.

Paulo Aboim Pinto