test(cli): speed up startup auto-pair tests

[cv]

Summary

Speeds up the next CLI runtime target by replacing the auto-pair watcher's test-only wall-clock waits with a local fake clock. The PR keeps the real subprocess timeout regression coverage, shortens those timeout windows, and ratchets the test/nemoclaw-start.test.ts legacy size budget down after trimming lines.

Related Issue

Part of #4892

Changes

• Redirect time.time() and time.sleep() inside the embedded auto-pair watcher harness to deterministic test helpers, without monkey-patching Python subprocess internals.
• Shorten the two real subprocess timeout regression tests from multi-second waits to sub-second watcher deadlines while preserving timeout assertions.
• Ratchet test/nemoclaw-start.test.ts in ci/test-file-size-budget.json from 5310 to 5300 lines.

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)

Verification

• npx prek run --all-files passes
• npm test passes
• Tests added or updated for new or changed behavior
• No secrets, API keys, or credentials committed
• Docs updated for user-facing behavior changes
• 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: Carlos Villela cvillela@nvidia.com

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Tests
  • Improved auto-pairing device watcher timeout and deadline handling
  • Enhanced test clock simulation for more realistic deadline behavior validation
  • Updated test file size budget configuration

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No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

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Run ID: 6d61120d-7c58-4430-b43f-134b0d495602

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 34cac80 and a1ed750.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• ci/test-file-size-budget.json
• test/nemoclaw-start.test.ts

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

This PR improves deadline-aware testing in the auto-pair watcher by introducing a bounded test clock that advances simulated time on sleep calls, and tightens two existing watcher timeout tests to exercise deadline logic with stricter parameters. The test file size budget is updated to reflect the net reduction in lines.

Changes

Watcher Timeout Testing and Time Mocking

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Test clock implementation for time mocking test/nemoclaw-start.test.ts	The autoPairPythonScript generator now patches Python's time.time() and time.sleep() with a bounded test clock that advances simulated time on each sleep call (capped at 0.25s) instead of fully disabling sleep, enabling deadline logic to execute while keeping wall-clock behavior controlled.
CLI invocation timeout test hardening test/nemoclaw-start.test.ts	The "bounds the openclaw CLI invocation" test shortens the simulated wedged devices list sleep from 5s to 2s, tightens deadline and interval parameters, sets per-subprocess run timeout to 0.25s, and adds a wall-clock assertion (elapsedMs < 1800) to verify the watcher exits via deadline rather than subprocess completion.
Transient approve timeout test hardening test/nemoclaw-start.test.ts	The "retries a transient approve timeout" test reduces the simulated devices approve hang from 5s to 2s and tightens the watcher timing parameters (fast/overall deadlines, interval, and 0.25s run timeout) to match stricter deadline expectations.
Test file size budget adjustment ci/test-file-size-budget.json	The test/nemoclaw-start.test.ts line budget is reduced from 5310 to 5300 in legacyMaxLines, reflecting the net 10-line reduction from the test file changes.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 2 (Simple) | ⏱️ ~12 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• NVIDIA/NemoClaw#4786: Both PRs update test/nemoclaw-start.test.ts to adjust startup auto-pair watcher hardening around deadlines and timeouts (the main PR refines time/deadline simulation, while the retrieved PR adds tightened deadline logic for scope rejections).
• NVIDIA/NemoClaw#4905: The main PR's update to ci/test-file-size-budget.json ties into the retrieved PR's introduction and enforcement of test-file size budgets.

Suggested labels

area: cli, area: ci, chore

Suggested reviewers

• prekshivyas
• cjagwani

Poem

A rabbit bounds through time with care,
Where clocks advance through testing air—
Deadlines checked with walls so tight,
Five seconds shortened, tests burn bright! ⏱️✨

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 0.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and concisely summarizes the main change: optimizing test performance by speeding up auto-pair startup tests through implementation of a fake clock mechanism.
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.

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✨ 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/cli-start-unit-speedups

---

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[github-actions]

E2E Advisor Recommendation

Required E2E: None
Optional E2E: None

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Full advisor summary

E2E Recommendation Advisor

Base: origin/main
Head: HEAD
Confidence: high

Required E2E

• None. No E2E is recommended because this PR is tests-only plus CI budget metadata. It adjusts test timing/fake-clock mechanics and line-count budget for an existing Vitest suite, with no changes to runtime start scripts, OpenClaw sandbox lifecycle, credentials, security boundaries, network policy, inference routing, deployment, or real assistant user flows.

Optional E2E

• None.

New E2E recommendations

• None.

[github-actions]

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Required scenario E2E: None
Optional scenario E2E: None

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E2E Scenario Advisor

Base: origin/main
Head: HEAD
Confidence: high

Required scenario E2E

• None. Changed files are CI test-size budget metadata and a non-scenario unit/integration test under test/, with no changes under test/e2e-scenario/ or scenario workflows; scenario E2E is not affected.

Optional scenario E2E

• None.

Relevant changed files

• None.

[github-actions]

PR Review Advisor

Findings: 0 needs attention, 0 worth checking, 0 nice ideas
Top item: No actionable code findings

Consider writing more tests for

• **Runtime validation** — Validate that the fake-clock auto-pair slow-mode test still approves a late CLI scope upgrade after browser convergence. The code changes are test-harness-only, but they affect timing around sandbox/startup auto-pair behavior. The logic appears covered by existing assertions; runtime validation is useful mainly to catch CI scheduling flakes from the tightened wall-clock timeout windows.
• **Runtime validation** — Validate that the fake-clock auto-pair tests still reject unknown, malformed-scope, and disallowed-scope requests without recording approvals. The code changes are test-harness-only, but they affect timing around sandbox/startup auto-pair behavior. The logic appears covered by existing assertions; runtime validation is useful mainly to catch CI scheduling flakes from the tightened wall-clock timeout windows.
• **Runtime validation** — Validate that the real subprocess timeout test still emits the `devices list` timeout log without using the fake clock. The code changes are test-harness-only, but they affect timing around sandbox/startup auto-pair behavior. The logic appears covered by existing assertions; runtime validation is useful mainly to catch CI scheduling flakes from the tightened wall-clock timeout windows.
• **Runtime validation** — Validate that a transient `devices approve` timeout is retried and records exactly one successful approval without using the fake clock. The code changes are test-harness-only, but they affect timing around sandbox/startup auto-pair behavior. The logic appears covered by existing assertions; runtime validation is useful mainly to catch CI scheduling flakes from the tightened wall-clock timeout windows.
• **Runtime validation** — Validate that the file-size budget check accepts the ratcheted 5300-line cap for `test/nemoclaw-start.test.ts`. The code changes are test-harness-only, but they affect timing around sandbox/startup auto-pair behavior. The logic appears covered by existing assertions; runtime validation is useful mainly to catch CI scheduling flakes from the tightened wall-clock timeout windows.
• **Acceptance clause:** Part of ci: safely split slow CLI coverage suites #4892 — add test evidence or identify existing coverage. The PR body references ci: safely split slow CLI coverage suites #4892, but the deterministic context provided no linked issue body or comments to extract literal acceptance clauses from.

Workflow run details

This is an automated advisory review. A human maintainer must make the final merge decision.