test(e2e): model boot restart before recovery

[senthilr-nv]

Summary

The post-reboot E2E fixture now models the boot-owned restart of the preserved OpenShell container before checking recovery. The previous fixture retried nemoclaw <name> status against a stopped container even though no actor could start it, so the lane failed deterministically instead of testing automatic post-reboot recovery.

Changes

• Start the preserved Docker container at the simulated reboot boundary and wait for the exact OpenShell sandbox to report Ready.
• Invoke nemoclaw <name> status once after the boot transition so status remains responsible for restoring OpenClaw, host forwarding, and the delivery path.
• Add focused coverage for command ordering and for starting the renamed preserved container in the GPU-backup scenario.

Type of Change

• Code change (feature, bug fix, or refactor)
• Code change with doc updates
• Doc only (prose changes, no code sample modifications)
• Doc only (includes code sample changes)

Quality Gates

• Tests added or updated for changed behavior
• Existing tests cover changed behavior — justification:
• Tests not applicable — justification:
• Docs updated for user-facing behavior changes
• Docs not applicable — justification: This changes only the E2E fixture's reboot simulation and support coverage. It does not change a product command, configuration, output, default, error, or supported user workflow.
• Sensitive paths changed (security, policy, credentials, preflight, onboarding, inference, runner, sandbox, or messaging)
• Sensitive-path review completed or maintainer-approved waiver recorded — reviewer/approval link/justification: Maintainer-directed E2E-only scope. The fixture starts the already identified preserved container; it does not change product sandbox lifecycle, command construction, credentials, or policy.
• Non-success, skipped, or missing CI check accepted by maintainer — check name, approval link, and follow-up issue:

Documentation Writer Review

• Documentation writer subagent reviewed the completed changes
• Result: no-docs-needed
• Evidence: The review confirmed exact command and lifecycle terminology in test/e2e/fixtures/phases/lifecycle.ts and behavior-oriented coverage in test/e2e/support/e2e-phase-lifecycle.test.ts. No user-visible product surface changes.
• Agent: Codex Desktop

DGX Station Hardware Evidence

• Tested on DGX Station
• Tested commit:
• Station profile/scenario:
• Result:
• Supporting evidence:

Verification

• PR description includes a Signed-off-by: line and every commit appears as Verified in GitHub
• Normal pre-commit, commit-msg, and pre-push hooks passed, or npm run validate:pr passed after refreshing origin/main when hooks were skipped or unavailable
• Targeted behavior tests pass for the current change set, or tests are marked not applicable above — command/result or justification: npx vitest run --project e2e-support test/e2e/support/e2e-phase-lifecycle.test.ts passed 23/23; npm run test:e2e-phases:check passed with 114 tests across 71 files; CLI and plugin builds passed.
• Applicable broad gate passed — npm test for broad runtime/test-harness changes; npm run check for repo-wide validation/coverage changes — command/result: Aggregate e2e-support reached 1,888 passing tests; two Linux/systemd fixture cases are incompatible with the macOS login-shell harness and one unrelated Hermes swap test timed out. The changed lifecycle suite is green; Linux CI is the authoritative broad gate.
• Quality Gates section completed with required justifications or waivers
• No secrets, API keys, or credentials committed
• npm run docs builds without warnings (doc changes only)
• Doc pages follow the style guide (doc changes only)
• New doc pages include SPDX header and frontmatter (new pages only)

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Signed-off-by: Senthil Ravichandran senthilr@nvidia.com

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Tests
  • Updated lifecycle recovery coverage to reflect Docker-managed container startup after reboot.
  • Added verification for sandbox readiness during stop-and-restart and rename-and-restart scenarios.
  • Added failure and readiness checks for post-reboot recovery.
  • Replaced timer-based status retry coverage with direct boot-restart readiness validation.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Enterprise

Run ID: f256583b-9a75-415e-b8a4-16ddb43d1e6f

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 31fb403 and 9516565.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• test/e2e/fixtures/phases/lifecycle.ts
• test/e2e/support/e2e-phase-lifecycle.test.ts

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The lifecycle fixture now models post-reboot Docker startup explicitly, polls sandbox readiness, and runs nemoclaw status once. E2E tests cover stop-original, recovery failure, stopped-container, and renamed GPU-backup scenarios.

Changes

Post-reboot recovery

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Lifecycle recovery flow test/e2e/fixtures/phases/lifecycle.ts	Readiness polling accepts transition labels. Post-reboot recovery starts the selected container, waits for sandbox readiness, records lifecycle steps, and runs status once.
Recovery scenario validation test/e2e/support/e2e-phase-lifecycle.test.ts	Tests validate Docker start, sandbox readiness, command order, step IDs, failure handling, and renamed backup-container recovery. Fake-timer cleanup and retry-based assertions were removed.

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• NVIDIA/NemoClaw#7848: Covers sandbox status recovery behavior exercised by these lifecycle tests.
• NVIDIA/NemoClaw#7879: Covers Docker container startup and readiness recovery.
• NVIDIA/NemoClaw#7975: Revises the same lifecycle fixture and recovery tests.

Suggested labels: area: e2e, chore

Suggested reviewers: cv, prekshivyas, cjagwani

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly summarizes the main change: modeling a boot restart before post-reboot recovery in E2E tests.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch codex/fix-post-reboot-recovery-contract

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_{Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands.}

[github-code-quality]

Code Coverage Overview

Languages: TypeScript

TypeScript / code-coverage/plugin

The overall coverage in commit 9516565 in the codex/fix-post-reboo... branch remains at 96%, unchanged from commit 31fb403 in the main branch.

TypeScript / code-coverage/cli

The overall coverage in commit 9516565 in the codex/fix-post-reboo... branch remains at 81%, unchanged from commit 31fb403 in the main branch.

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_{Updated August 01, 2026 07:58 UTC}

[github-actions]

PR Review Advisor — No blocking findings reported

Advisor assessment: No blocking advisor findings reported
Next action: No advisor follow-up needed.
Findings: 0 blockers · 0 warnings · 0 suggestions

Model lanes

• GPT-5.6 Terra (primary): Completed · high confidence · 0 blockers · 0 warnings · 0 suggestions
• Nemotron 3 Ultra (second opinion): Completed · high confidence · 0 blockers · 0 warnings · 0 suggestions
• Model comparison: normalized findings match; normalized E2E selections match; severity counts match.

Second-opinion E2E selections are advisory. They do not change the primary assessment or E2E / PR Gate.

E2E guidance

Advisory only. E2E / PR Gate selects and runs jobs independently.

Recommended E2E: cloud-inference, cloud-onboard, security-posture, ubuntu-repo-docker-post-reboot-recovery

Workflow run details

This automated review informs maintainers. Warnings and suggestions do not require a response. A maintainer decides whether to merge.