ci(visual): pin time on screenshots to remove clock-driven diff noise#22
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This was referenced May 12, 2026
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## Summary Followup to #22. The first time-pin attempt only worked on the Linux DEs whose panels are single-threaded. macOS, Windows, KDE, MATE still drifted because each used the wrong mechanism. - **macOS**: switched to the correct Sonoma+ Control Center key (`defaults -currentHost write com.apple.controlcenter Clock -int 16`) + hide the dock (`autohide=true`, `autohide-delay=1000`) so the Calendar.app icon's daily date no longer drifts. Bumped killall sleep to 8s. - **Linux**: swapped `libfaketime.so.1` → `libfaketimeMT.so.1`. The MT variant intercepts time syscalls in multi-threaded panels (Plasma, MATE) that the non-MT lib was missing. - **Windows**: extended `VISUAL_PREPARE_CMD` to `Set-Date '2026-01-01 00:00:00'` + disable `w32time`. The taskbar clock will still tick during the ~5s of test execution but starts at the same point, so PRs only show seconds-level drift instead of full wall-clock drift. Tint2 looks visually identical between runs (clock shows `00:00 Thursday 01 January` both times) but PNG bytes differ — residual font-AA noise, not chasing. (Replaces #24, which was branched from before #22 merged.) ## Test plan - [ ] All 14 visual jobs still pass - [ ] Inspect each platform's new screenshot to confirm clock is hidden (macOS/Win) or frozen at 00:00 (Linux) - [ ] Two consecutive runs on `main` after merge produce an auto-refresh PR with empty or trivially small diff
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#28) ## Summary Even after #22, #25, and #26, the auto-refresh PR keeps reopening every push because residual clock/dock/wallpaper drift survives time-pinning on some platforms (macOS menu bar clock, Linux MATE/Tint2 panels, Windows taskbar clock). Suppressing every clock source per-OS is whack-a-mole; this PR sidesteps it by masking the saved screenshot to only the rects we care about. - **Fixture**: after `showWindow()`, emit `VISUAL:bounds={"tray":{...},"window":{...},"scale":N}` with `mb.tray.getBounds()`, `mb.window.getBounds()`, and the primary display's scale factor for DIP→physical-pixel conversion. - **run.ts**: pixel-check the *original* full-screen capture (tray detection still works on platforms like Linux SNI where `tray.getBounds()` returns `{0,0,0,0}`), then mask the on-disk PNG to keep only the tray + window rects (with 4px padding) and write the masked version. Everything outside — clock, dock, wallpaper, pre-launched File Explorer — becomes solid black. Auto-refresh PR diffs from here on out should only fire when the actual tray icon or popover window rendering changes, not when the OS clock ticks. ## Test plan - [ ] All 14 visual jobs pass (pixel check still operates on full screen pre-mask) - [ ] Inspect a sample of the new screenshots: tray-icon + cyan/yellow window visible on black background, no clock or other OS chrome - [ ] Two consecutive runs on `main` after merge → auto-refresh PR diff is empty or close to it
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Summary
Each visual-tray run currently produces a different screenshot per platform every time, dominated by the OS clock ticking. That trains reviewers to dismiss image diffs in the auto-refresh PR without looking, and defeats the point of having screenshots in
PLATFORMS.md. This PR removes the clock-driven noise per platform without touching system time globally.defaults write com.apple.controlcenter "NSStatusItem Visible Clock" -bool false+killall ControlCenterto hide the menu bar clock entirely. Runs once after build, beforebun run test:visual.faketime, wrap eachpanel_cmdwithfaketime "@2026-01-01 00:00:00" bash -c "...". The libfaketime LD_PRELOAD intercepts time syscalls in the panel process and its children, so clock applets in MATE/Xfce/LXQt/KDE/Cinnamon/Tint2/GNOME/Budgie all display a frozen2026-01-01 00:00:00.VISUAL_PREPARE_CMDto setHKCU:\…\Explorer\Advanced\HideClock = 1before restarting explorer. Best-effort on Server 2025 where Win11-style taskbar may ignore it; can iterate if needed.After this lands, the next auto-refresh PR diff should be empty (or close to it) on platforms that re-run with no real rendering change — making any actual regression in tray icon / window painting immediately visible.
Test plan
.github/visual-screenshots/*.pngto confirm no clock is visible (or that it shows00:00)