Debug E2e Tests

Debug E2E Tests

Debug failed e2e test runs from GitHub Actions or OpenShift CI (Prow). Downloads test logs and cluster artifacts, identifies root causes, and suggests fixes to this repo or upstream dependencies.

When this skill is activated, tell the user: "Using the debug-e2e-tests skill to investigate this failure." Then show the checklist from the Workflow section below so the user can track progress.

Prerequisites

• gh CLI authenticated with access to konflux-ci/konflux-ci
• curl available (for Prow artifact downloads)
• tar and unzip available (standard on Linux/macOS)

Workflow

Copy this checklist and track progress:

- [ ] Step 1: Identify the CI system and failed run
- [ ] Step 2: Download artifacts
- [ ] Step 3: Analyze test output (JUnit + Ginkgo logs)
- [ ] Step 4: Analyze cluster logs
- [ ] Step 5: (Optional) Inspect the tested commit
- [ ] Step 6: Determine root cause and suggest fix

Step 1: Identify the CI System and Failed Run

First, determine which CI system the failure is from:

GitHub Actions

If the user provides a PR number, run ID, or branch name, use that. Otherwise, find recent failures:

# List recent failed e2e runs
gh run list --repo konflux-ci/konflux-ci \
  --workflow "Operator E2E Tests" \
  --status failure --limit 10

# For a specific PR
gh run list --repo konflux-ci/konflux-ci \
  --workflow "Operator E2E Tests" \
  --branch <branch> --limit 5

Get the run ID from the output (first column).

To see which jobs failed within a run:

gh run view <run-id> --repo konflux-ci/konflux-ci

The e2e workflow has these jobs:

• Run Operator E2E Tests (AMD64) — main e2e on amd64
• Run Operator E2E Tests (ARM64) — main e2e on arm64

OpenShift CI (Prow)

The user will typically provide a Prow URL like:

https://prow.ci.openshift.org/view/gs/test-platform-results/pr-logs/pull/konflux-ci_konflux-ci/<PR>/<job-name>/<build-id>

Key Prow jobs for this repo:

• pull-ci-konflux-ci-konflux-ci-main-konflux-e2e-v420-optional — PR presubmit (OCP 4.20)
• periodic-ci-konflux-ci-konflux-ci-main-ocp420-konflux-e2e-v420 — periodic x86_64
• periodic-ci-konflux-ci-konflux-ci-main-ocp420-arm64-konflux-e2e-v420-arm64 — periodic ARM64

You can view recent Prow job runs at:

• x86_64 periodic
• ARM64 periodic

Step 2: Download Artifacts

GitHub Actions

Use the helper script to download and extract artifacts:

bash skills/debug-e2e-tests/scripts/download-logs.sh <run-id> [arch]

• arch defaults to amd64. Use arm64 if that's the failing job.
• Artifacts are extracted to /tmp/e2e-debug-<run-id>/

If the script is unavailable, download manually:

WORKDIR="/tmp/e2e-debug-<run-id>"
mkdir -p "$WORKDIR" && cd "$WORKDIR"

# Download artifacts (name is "logs-amd64" or "logs-arm64")
gh run download <run-id> --repo konflux-ci/konflux-ci \
  --name logs-amd64 --dir "$WORKDIR/logs"

Also download the raw job log for the failing job:

# Get job IDs
gh api "repos/konflux-ci/konflux-ci/actions/runs/<run-id>/jobs" \
  --jq '.jobs[] | select(.conclusion=="failure") | "\(.id) \(.name)"'

# Download the full job log
gh api "repos/konflux-ci/konflux-ci/actions/jobs/<job-id>/logs" > "$WORKDIR/job.log"

OpenShift CI (Prow)

Use the Prow download script:

bash skills/debug-e2e-tests/scripts/download-prow-logs.sh <prow-url>

The script accepts:

• A full Prow UI URL: https://prow.ci.openshift.org/view/gs/...
• A GCS path: gs://test-platform-results/pr-logs/...
• A gcsweb URL: https://gcsweb-ci.apps.ci.l2s4.p1.openshiftapps.com/gcs/...

Artifacts are extracted to /tmp/prow-debug-<build-id>/. See prow-reference.md for the full artifact directory layout, step descriptions, gather file listing, and gcsweb URL patterns for fetching additional files.

Step 3: Analyze Test Output

3a. JUnit Report

Check the JUnit XML first for a quick summary of which tests failed:

# GitHub Actions:
#   logs/junit/junit-conformance-amd64.xml  (or arm64)
#
# Prow:
#   junit/junit.xml
#   (also: artifacts/junit_operator.xml for step-level pass/fail)

Look for <testcase> elements with <failure> children. Extract test names and failure messages.

3b. Ginkgo Output

The test execution log contains full Ginkgo output. Search for:

• [FAILED] — Ginkgo failure markers
• FAIL! — Go test failure
• Timed out or context deadline exceeded — timeout failures
• Expected / to equal / to succeed — Gomega assertion failures

Where to find it:

• GitHub Actions: job.log (raw job log)
• Prow: steps/konflux-ci-e2e-tests/build-log.txt

The test suite is Konflux Conformance under test/go-tests/tests/conformance/. Cross-reference the failing test name with the source files there to understand what the test was doing.

Step 4: Analyze Cluster Logs

GitHub Actions artifacts

The logs/ directory (from generate-err-logs.sh) contains the cluster state at test failure time. Read files in this priority order:

For deeper analysis, check structured artifacts under logs/artifacts/:

• events.json — all cluster events (search for Warning/error patterns)
• deployments.json — deployment availability and conditions
• pipelineruns.json / taskruns.json — Tekton resource details
• pods/<namespace>_<pod>.log — individual pod logs from key namespaces
• repositories.json — PipelinesAsCode Repository CRs and their status

For details on log structure, see reference.md.

Prow artifacts

For Prow jobs, cluster state is collected by the redhat-appstudio-gather step. Start with artifacts/junit_operator.xml to see which multi-stage test steps passed/failed — if the install step failed, the test never ran. Then check step logs under steps/<step-name>/build-log.txt and gathered resources under gather/.

See prow-reference.md for the complete artifact layout, step descriptions, gather file listing, failure pattern table, and a mapping of Prow artifacts to their GitHub Actions equivalents.

4a. "No PipelineRun found" failures — PaC webhook chain

When the failure is "no pipelinerun found for component …", read pac-webhook-debugging.md for detailed guidance on tracing the PaC webhook delivery chain.

Step 5: Inspect the Tested Commit (Optional)

This step is not always needed. Use it when the logs from Steps 3–4 suggest a regression in this repo's code (operator changes, kustomization updates, test modifications, deployment scripts) and you want to confirm by looking at the actual diff. Skip it when the root cause is already clear from the logs alone (e.g., an obvious infrastructure issue or upstream service crash).

5a. Get the head commit and base branch from the run

GitHub Actions:

# Show the head SHA, branch, and associated PR for the run
gh run view <run-id> --repo konflux-ci/konflux-ci --json headSha,headBranch \
  --jq '"branch: \(.headBranch)\ncommit: \(.headSha)"'

# Find the PR's base branch (don't assume main)
gh pr list --repo konflux-ci/konflux-ci --head <branch> --json number,baseRefName \
  --jq '.[0] | "PR #\(.number) → base: \(.baseRefName)"'

Prow:

The commit info is in started.json and prowjob.json (downloaded in Step 2):

# From started.json — shows the PR refs
cat /tmp/prow-debug-<build-id>/started.json | python3 -m json.tool

# From prowjob.json — contains full refs spec
cat /tmp/prow-debug-<build-id>/prowjob.json | \
  python3 -c "import json,sys; d=json.load(sys.stdin); r=d['spec'].get('refs') or d['spec']['extra_refs'][0]; print(f\"org: {r['org']}\nrepo: {r['repo']}\nbase: {r['base_ref']}\nSHA: {r['base_sha']}\nPR pulls: {r.get('pulls', [])}\")"

For presubmit (PR) jobs, the pulls array contains the PR number and head SHA. For periodic jobs, base_sha is the commit tested from the base branch.

5b. Check out and inspect the diff

# Fetch the branch and check it out
git fetch origin <branch> <base-branch>
git checkout <head-sha>

# View the full diff against the base branch
git diff origin/<base-branch>...<head-sha> --stat
git diff origin/<base-branch>...<head-sha>

# If the PR has multiple commits, review them individually
git log --oneline origin/<base-branch>..<head-sha>

Scan the diff for changes to files related to the failure (e.g., kustomizations, operator code, test helpers, deployment scripts). Cross-reference with the error signals from Steps 3–4.

5c. Investigate git history for suspected regressions

If a specific file or component looks suspicious, use git history to understand recent changes:

# Recent commits touching a suspect file
git log --oneline -20 -- <file-path>

# Show each change with diff
git log -p -5 -- <file-path>

# Compare the suspect file between two points
git diff <known-good-sha> <head-sha> -- <file-path>

This is especially useful when the failure is new and the logs point to a particular controller, kustomization, or test file — tracing the history can pinpoint exactly which change introduced the regression.

Step 6: Determine Root Cause and Suggest Fix

Classify the failure into one of these categories:

A. Test code issue (fix in this repo)

The test assertion is wrong, flaky, or the test setup is incomplete.

• Fix location: test/go-tests/tests/conformance/
• Also check: test/e2e/run-e2e.sh, deploy-test-resources.sh

B. Operator issue (fix in this repo)

The Konflux operator itself is broken — reconciliation failures, bad defaults, missing RBAC.

• Fix location: operator/ (controllers, API types, RBAC, kustomize overlays)

C. Upstream dependency issue (fix in upstream repo)

A Konflux microservice is broken. Identify which service from the logs, then map it to the upstream repo:

Check the pinned commit SHA in the kustomization to identify which upstream version is deployed, then inspect that repo for relevant issues or recent changes.

D. Infrastructure / flaky failure

Resource exhaustion, network issues, Kind cluster instability.

• Check system-resources.log and cluster-resources.log
• If the test passed on one arch but failed on another, likely infra-related
• If the failure is intermittent across runs, likely flaky

E. Cross-job interference (shared external state)

When a failure looks flaky, check whether parallel CI jobs are competing over shared external resources. The AMD64 and ARM64 e2e jobs run on separate clusters but may share the same external services (Quay organization, GitHub repos, OCI registries). Multiple PRs or retries can also run concurrently.

If two jobs create, modify, or depend on the same external resource (e.g., same Quay repository path, same OCI artifact tag, same GitHub branch), one job can silently corrupt the other's state — overwriting images, rotating credentials, deleting data, or pushing conflicting artifacts.

How to check:

1. Compare the BeforeAll setup logs from both arches (in their JUnit XML <system-err> blocks) — look for any external resource identifiers (image URLs, repo paths, branch names, artifact names) that are identical.
2. Check if the failure is non-deterministic: one arch passes while the other fails, or results flip between re-runs with no code change.
3. Check whether other PRs or workflow runs were active at the same time and could have touched the same external resources.

Typical symptoms: intermittent failures, "unauthorized" registry errors, wrong image content, unexpected data in pipeline results, one arch passes while the other fails, or tests that break only when CI is busy.

Fix: ensure every concurrent job uses unique external resource names. See operator/hack/setup-release.sh --image-name-prefix (-I) for an example.

Output Format

Present findings as:

## E2E Failure Analysis

**Run:** <link to run>
**Failed job:** <job name>
**Failed test(s):** <test name(s)>

### Root Cause
<Concise description of why the test failed>

### Evidence
<Key log excerpts that support the diagnosis>

### Category
<A/B/C/D from above>

### Suggested Fix
<Specific code changes or actions to resolve the issue>
- File(s) to change: ...
- If upstream: repo + what to fix

Go toolchain failures

If logs contain go.mod requires go >= or running go 1.X with a lower toolchain, switch to go-toolchain-upgrade — the fix is usually bumping Prow build_root / runner images in openshift/release or rebuilding e2e-test-runner, not only changing this repo.

Source: konflux-ci/konflux-ci — distributed by TomeVault.