`dist` doesn't catch errors that `test` does

[autonome]

hm, worked locally w/ dist, so maybe we should have that script fail on this also

Agreed, it's caught me up a couple of times. I usually will run npm run dist && npm run test in the same line just to double check. Can you file an issue for this please?

Originally posted by @petele in #1592 (comment)

The workflow in the docs and from talking to folks is to run dist to check the yaml changes for a feature.

However, you can have a perfectly valid entry, as above, which runs fine in dist locally, but fails the automated test.

I haven't looked, so not sure what the right solution is. Fix the test to accept valid yaml entries? Cram test in to dist? Just get everyone to run both per above?

dist already takes a bit long, so not sure we want to always run test with it.

(Side thought... I'd like a watch command on just the given feature I'm working on...)

[ddbeck]

Can you point me to a concrete example (e.g., a failing GitHub Actions workflow run) of dist succeeding and test failing?

I suspect some failures could be improved by better onboarding docs (e.g., recommending turning on Prettier formatting in your editor). But it's also possible there's some actual bugs.

dist already takes a bit long, so not sure we want to always run test with it.

dist can run faster by specifying feature files as an argument: npm run dist -- feature/some-file.yml won't refresh everything, just the files you're working on.

(Side thought... I'd like a watch command on just the given feature I'm working on...)

I found this hard to do in a platform-independent way, though a PR would be welcome. You might want to see what options are available in your system and shell. I have a script for watching for YAML changes and rerunning dist which you might find instructive though not portable (a fish shell script that depends on a non-standard on macOS command line tool, fswatch).

[autonome]

Can you point me to a concrete example (e.g., a failing GitHub Actions workflow run) of dist succeeding and test failing?

#1592 (review)

dist can run faster by specifying feature files as an argument: npm run dist -- feature/some-file.yml won't refresh everything, just the files you're working on.

yesss, this is great, thank you! i can wire this up to whatever watch system now.

[ddbeck]

I've opened #1608 to try to cover some of the rough edges reported here:

• Avoiding Prettier CI failures with a note suggesting turning on Prettier formatting in your editor
• Running dist for the specific file you're working on

I also included a note about which Node version to use, since that came up recently in #1404.