PaperClipAI/tests/runner-e2e/PRODUCT-JOURNEYS.md

Product journeys across deployments

product-journeys is an explicit Product E2E selection. Deployment is separate from the local / daytona execution environment. Existing selectors, execution IDs, and the --all matrix keep their historical meaning. These are scripted browser journeys with API setup and independent assertions; they are not strict browser-only “use as a user” discovery.

Concept	Owner
Journey	User actions, prerequisites, assertions, feature-map associations
Target provider	Authentication, deployed identity, configuration, acquisition, cleanup
Setup recipe	Resolve requested company/user/task capabilities through the fixture registry
Campaign	Explicit journey order, target, model profile, limits, lifetime

Shared code is in product-journeys/. Cloud fleet operations, email-code login, private state, and trusted CI live in the private paperclip-cloud repository. The TargetProvider version-1 interface is defined in product-journeys/types.ts. Journeys receive a ready browser, company-scoped API, IDs, and capabilities. They never start a server or depend on a tenant filesystem.

Selections

Journey	Required starting state	Observed outcome
task-create	Company and signed-in board user	Create a task through the shared production composer, assign it to yourself, reopen and reload it, verify the saved prompt and no agent work
project-task-context	Company, signed-in board user, task-write capability; no model runs	Create a project and a self-assigned task with the project selected through the production dialogs. Reopen the project, open its task, reload both, and verify exact saved company, project, prompt, assignment, standard work mode and zero runs
ask-question	Company, configured agent capability, positive model allowance and exactly one permitted work run	Reuse the existing cross-model Ask question prompt; require one successful run with matching company/task/agent/model/environment, one saved exact answer, and visible readback after reload
task-properties	Company, signed-in board user, task-write capability, prepared run-owned backlog task	Open its properties, assign it to the signed-in user, reload, check both UI and saved assignment; verify no agent run
task-search-filter	Company, signed-in board user, task-write capability; zero model runs	Search three owned target/control tasks through the task list, require exact matching identities, filter Backlog to exclude the completed control, reload and return from the exact saved task with search/filter context intact
plan-revise-accept	Native agent; three work runs	Reuse the classic Plan story: canonical draft, browser revision request, new revision-bound confirmation, approval and exact saved final response
build-revise	Native agent; two work runs; qualified Docker artifact oracle	Browser-download both ZIP versions, independently exercise source/CLI behavior, verify different hashes and preserve the original download
protected-actions	Native agent; four work runs; authenticated reachable review-service fixture	Approve one action and decline another on separate owned tasks; verify zero calls before either decision, one after approval, zero after decline and a truthful saved explanation
create-skill-studio	Native agent with skill-write permission; one work run	Create a uniquely named company skill, open its activity card, edit in Studio, reload and verify task-card readback
stop-redirect	Native agent; three work runs; qualified Docker oracle	Download a verified checkpoint, Stop an active revision, require native cancellation acknowledgement, submit a new direction once and verify completion without original-run activity
cloud-onboarding	Signed-in admitted Cloud account; fresh workspace; qualified bounded provider route	Create workspace in the portal, connect API key and native Codex agent in the wizard, complete a task, download and independently check its artifact

The shared Studio helper waits for the original saved file body before typing. An editor control can mount before the file query completes; editing that empty draft can otherwise lose the original content when the file arrives.

The project/task journey records durable project and task ownership before each creation and immediately saves the response IDs. Its project must retain its planned state. Independent project-filtered task reads must contain the exact new task. The final task view must show the same project after reload. Browser readback uses the main project heading and visible task content rather than a duplicate sidebar label. It binds navigation to the saved project URL key and task identifier. Closed failure codes identify project-list, project-open, task-open and property-readback failures without retaining Playwright page text. A Cloud provider must clean only these owned resources, settle owned tasks before archiving the project, and preserve their history. Catalog registration does not admit this candidate to a saved daily plan; a real deployment pass is required.

The search/filter journey creates only campaign-owned, board-assigned tasks through the public API. The target and completed control share a unique search marker; a second Backlog control has a different marker. Search and status selection use the production controls. The oracle compares the complete visible task identity set at each step, verifies the exact saved company, owner, title, description and status, and checks all three tasks have no native runs. It reopens the target after reload and browser Back, and leaves the target visible for the harness screenshot. The combined Tasks shell reapplies its named view's status preset on mount, so the journey first proves the checkbox filter, then selects the normal Backlog view and enters the same search again before checking reload/Back persistence. Coordinator and legacy task lists keep their supported saved-filter behavior. The status selector stays inside the Status group. Legacy status glyphs contribute their label to the checkbox's accessible name, producing BacklogBacklog; the refreshed panel supplies the explicit Backlog name. A credential-free browser regression covers both forms and a separate assignee called Backlog. Unexpected browser/API errors retain only a closed task_search_<stage>_failed code. Stage names come from the journey source; raw exception text, URLs, form values, and response bodies are not added to reporting. Existing owned evidence failures keep their specific codes and the screenshot privacy guard stays in place. It does not depend on row order or an otherwise empty company. This selection is manual until a separate target owner records a fresh pass and admits it to a daily plan; adding the shared journey does not qualify any deployed target.

Supported acquisitions are managed self-hosted (local), registered existing Cloud (local or daytona when present), and new Cloud. New Cloud must start with onboarding. Its context can then satisfy the identical task-properties journey without another setup. A recipe reports startingState: recipe; reusing successful onboarding reports onboarding. Preconfigured state is never counted as onboarding coverage.

The scripted onboarding request supplies a self-contained child brief. The parent must first save its proposal through the existing native confirmation tool and check the saved card receipt. The browser records the human decision; the parent must not record its own approval or treat the opening scope as acceptance. It must copy the full marked brief verbatim into create_task.description, including tool names, parameters, and the encoded input. It orders the child's work: create the files, publish connection-proof.json with that exact filename and workspace-relative content reference, save its Paperclip task document with the returned file link, then report completion. A Markdown workspace note does not replace the task document. It explains the native completion contract: include actual verification, omit the optional schema, and use receipt-derived deliverable references in evidence and file artifacts. Local input paths are verification details. Correcting rejected tool arguments stays within the same attempt; it does not retry the journey. The model still computes the result, publishes the file, saves the document, and completes the tasks. Independent download, math, provenance, document, and parent-link checks remain authoritative. Historical failed attempts retain their original fixture and outcome. The parent's final reply must use Markdown links to the saved child results, including the attachment's real content or download path. Naming a file or document key in inline code does not satisfy the existing parent-link check.

Save this credential-free local target config outside the repository:

{
  "version": 1,
  "id": "local-qa",
  "mode": "managed-self-hosted",
  "journeys": ["task-properties"],
  "executionEnvironment": "local",
  "baseline": { "features": {}, "connections": [] },
  "limits": { "durationMs": 600000, "modelBudgetCents": 0, "maxRuns": 0 }
}

pnpm test:e2e:runner -- --suite product-journeys --list
pnpm test:e2e:runner -- --target-config /private/target.json --preview
pnpm test:e2e:runner -- --target-config /private/target.json --output /private/new-campaign

Preview resolves selections and declared changes without loading the private provider, reading credentials, signing in, provisioning, or making model calls. Its output includes required state, features/connections, lifetime, and limits. Output directories must be new; an attempt is never overwritten. Browser-only results use null provider/model and runtime none, including failures before the journey starts. No artificial model run is introduced for reporting. New execution IDs have the form product-journeys.<target>.<profile-or-browser>.<environment>.<journey>; the report reader continues to accept historical four-part execution IDs.

Cloud config supplies adapterModule and the private provider's reference-only adapterConfig. Use the private CLI and runbook to configure those fields. Paid onboarding requires positive modelBudgetCents and maxRuns, a duration of at most one hour, and a qualified operations adapter. The initial private Cloud adapter admits at most 30 minutes and $10. Select runner-codex-mini explicitly for its gpt-5.4-mini pilot; existing profile defaults remain unchanged. There are no automatic story retries. One campaign may create at most one disposable workspace.

Workspace contention can defer a child before provider execution. The journey keeps that run and follows only its unique, scoped durable replacement when the server proves that no provider work started. A scheduled replacement remains pending and consumes the run limit. It cannot satisfy completion; the child must still finish through native execution and pass the independent artifact checks.

A failed native run can remain pending when the authenticated run projection identifies agent-owned automatic recovery on that same run. Its native phase must remain retryable, with matching nonempty cause strings, a bounded attempt and retry schedule, and no successor. Cause strings are diagnostic values, not a positive retry policy. Known permanent, permission-declined, and exhausted causes are also rejected defensively. The wait stays within the original campaign deadline. An overdue retry can still be reconnecting; it does not extend the deadline or authorize a new story attempt. Ordinary failures, terminal or board-owned recovery, and exhausted attempts still fail. The producing turn must settle before proposal acceptance, and the recovered child must actually succeed before the existing document, artifact, download, and parent-link checks can pass.

An approved child that commits a board-owned current-track blocker fails with onboarding_child_task_blocked once all owned work has settled. The latest child run must prove the blocked decision at the child's current status version. Parent dependency waits, pending recovery, and stale child decisions keep waiting within the original deadline. This failure does not satisfy any delivery check. The semantic control-plane port writes prpReportedWorkDisposition. Native finalization commits the blocked decision and statusVersionAfter into the run's resultJson.

The attached ask-question recipe requires a prepared native general agent and an explicit execution environment. Legacy execution is unsupported until its saved model/provider identity can be verified. A registered agent avoids a new setup probe; a disposable QA agent uses the existing native fixture defaults and its setup remains separately unpriced. A restricted review bot is not a general-work fixture. The private provider supplies its exact execution identity through the agent capability and collects normalized run usage. The existing Cloud provider still owns authentication, conditional leases, fixture ownership, and cleanup.

The Plan, Stop and protected-action decline checks reload the owned task and bind its exact, unique visible reply to the final successful native run. A settled native turn can render its saved reply before the comments projection exists; that path also requires exactly one matching final assistant message in the complete durable event stream, with the same company, agent, run and validated PRP source. If the run has a projected selected completion comment, only that attributed comment can satisfy the check. A pending or suppressed comment can use the same proven native reply path. A finish summary by itself, an earlier turn, a progress bubble, or a cancelled run cannot satisfy it. Private receipts record the run, thread anchor and observed text; classic protocol comment matchers stay strict. Markdown replies compare complete text, GFM checkbox states and exact link destinations after parsing through the UI-owned projection of its existing Markdown renderer and GFM/issue-reference plugins. The observer receives the same visible-company prefix list used by the UI, so bare issue keys and URLs match their rendered links. Whitespace and inline formatting can change during rendering. A document or issue chip can replace a link label, but must retain its destination. Ordinary links retain their source label. Destination resolution uses the existing production company-route helper and the current task URL for fragments. Receipts retain both source Markdown and observed content. Unsupported structures such as images, raw HTML, tables and fenced code fail closed. Exact marker checks remain exact, and decline checks inspect both visible explanations and source text for unread service data. The decline oracle accepts this explicit native receipt without inventing an issue comment. The final run must start after the saved decline, and the usual truthful explanation, zero service calls and no unread marker checks still apply. A model allowance is an accounting threshold; reused direct-provider routes do not acquire the onboarding gateway's request-level cash guarantee. The question observer allows one run and waits at most four minutes. Cleanup stops only run-owned question work; shared agent configuration stays outside ownership. When the QA adapter explicitly selects terminal-history retention, it terminates its disposable agent, makes owned tasks terminal, verifies no active runs, retains the records for decision-history integrity, and releases both QA leases. This is reported as retained data, rather than confirmed deletion.

Evidence and lifecycle

Results use the existing campaign/result schemas and dashboard. Each result retains campaign/attempt IDs, source revision, definition hash, deployed tenant commit, Cloud release, runtime identity, configuration hash, setup provenance, checks, and authentication/setup/journey/collection/cleanup outcomes. A failed prerequisite remains failed at that boundary; every dependent selection receives a blocked result. Unsupported target capabilities are distinct from failures. Deployment/configuration drift during a journey fails its result.

New onboarding attempts retain a bounded productJourney.artifact receipt in the existing private normalized-results.json, before disposable cleanup. It includes the exact downloaded connection-proof.json bytes as base64, attachment and originating-run IDs, byte count and SHA-256, plus the harness-generated input and independent expected result. Reinspection can decode the original bytes, recompute their checksum, and recompute the expected nonce, count, sum, and input checksum after the workspace is deleted. Only this exact four-field synthetic fixture is admitted, with a 4 KiB download limit and a closed receipt schema; arbitrary agent output is excluded. Capture follows attribution and independent download verification. The receipt survives later document, link, reload, or trace failures without turning those failed journey steps into passes. Historical attempts without it remain readable and do not gain retained-artifact proof retroactively. Descendant stories reuse context without copying the receipt.

Collection must finish within the campaign deadline. Cleanup and evidence publication then share a separate ten-minute grace period, with the last thirty seconds reserved for a twenty-second stop-only fallback and ten-second browser close. These are cleanup bounds and do not admit further story or model work. Provider lifecycle hooks receive a deadline and cancellation signal; they must bound in-flight requests and fence late resource mutations or lease writes when the signal aborts. A timed-out release cannot authorize evidence finalization or lease release. Its manifest stays available for cleanup recovery.

Every would-be successful result is checked against the retained-result success contract before successful cleanup. Missing assertions or paid accounting proof turn the campaign into a failure while preserving valid cost receipts, so an invalid success cannot trigger disposable-stack deletion.

The shared Plan story additionally retains draft and revised task screenshots privately. Other screenshots capture the post-journey task. Failed task/search screens are retained only after tenant setup; authentication pages are excluded. Browser state, login codes, raw errors, credentials, request headers, and auth screenshots are excluded. All Cloud evidence is private; the public history publisher rejects these bundles. The private provider uses conditional S3 identity/stack leases and intent/receipt ownership manifests. An expired lease permits cleanup recovery, not reuse.

Managed self-hosted instances are removed after every attempt. Existing Cloud stacks retain the QA account and declared baseline while removing verified run-owned fixtures. Successful disposable stacks are deleted. Failed disposable stacks are stopped and retained for up to 24 hours. The deployment provider declares earlier cleanup eligibility to leave time for its sweeper. Interrupted cleanup remains visible and retains exclusive stack ownership. QA identity and inbox never belong to disposable ownership.

Eval operations integration and qualification

The private adapter carries the same campaign/attempt identity through bounded request admission, setup/agent phase transitions, run observation, cost receipts, trace IDs, and feedback collection. A normalized operations receipt belongs only to the onboarding attempt; descendants do not repeat shared setup charges. Unknown cost remains unknown. Raw feedback, traces, and ledgers stay private. Invocation evidence distinguishes native event inspection from a proven provider_not_started workspace deferral. Both require complete event reads. Pending replacements and contradictory execution evidence remain partial.

The sibling Operationalize eval runs implementation currently admits local cells and binds its gateway to loopback. That is not Cloud reachability or budget qualification. A Cloud adapter must prove the selected runtime's route, effective credential binding, budget admission, and exact campaign deadline before any paid provider action. The normal wizard first saves a custom-gateway connection and selects its model without inference. Qualification checks this exact saved route from the actual runtime before the normal Connect probe. Missing qualification blocks onboarding; it must never fall back to an unmetered direct provider request.

As of 2026-10-22, the same task-properties story has passed in real browsers on managed self-hosted and a registered testing Cloud stack, including cleanup and zero model calls. Normal QA email-code authentication and account admission have also passed against testing. Cloud onboarding selectors and lifecycle contracts have offline tests; fresh onboarding, dependent reuse, and disposable cleanup remain unqualified. Provider and trace secret references are configured. The separate onboarding gateway product change, trusted CI selection, and real runtime gateway admission remain live qualification prerequisites. Testing and staging use separate registries and credentials; only the declared testing control plane is admitted. Defining a story or passing structural checks is not evidence that its Cloud journey passed.

Reuse and daily QA promotion

The classic matrix and deployment-targeted stories share Plan revision actions, artifact download/oracle code, Skill Studio editing and protected-action decisions. Their target adapters own login, agent/connection provisioning, environment identity, and cleanup. The managed local recipe currently provides browser-only capabilities; paid stories fail as unsupported until a native agent fixture is supplied. This does not turn a classic local pass into a QA Cloud pass.

Paid deployment campaigns declare the exact sum of expected work runs (Ask 1, Plan 3, artifact revision 2, protected actions 4, Skill Studio 1, Stop/redirect 3). Each observer reads only its owned tasks and checks native company, agent, model and execution-environment identity. Setup is separately unpriced. Skills and service connections are uniquely owned; customer credentials and company-wide configuration are never copied into a journey.

The private QA adapter keeps candidate cases available for manual qualification. A candidate's presence in this source catalog is not qualification. It enters the saved daily TestOps plan only after an inspected real QA Cloud pass including usage, artifact/decision evidence and cleanup. The daily driver runs that saved plan against the registered QA tenant; it does not substitute a local instance.