Automate Native SDK apps

Every Native SDK app embeds an automation server — native-rendered apps and WebView-shell apps alike. It works through file-based IPC in .zig-cache/native-sdk-automation/ and is intended for smoke tests, CI checks with a GUI session, and quick runtime inspection: accessibility snapshots, widget driving through the real input paths, deterministic reference-renderer screenshots, readiness/state assertions, and bridge round-trips.

Automation is not browser DOM automation. It reports runtime/window/widget state, drives retained-canvas widgets, and can ask the runtime to reload or dispatch bridge requests. For DOM testing of the optional WebView path, use the frontend framework's tests or a browser automation tool against the dev server.

What automation can verify

• An automation-enabled app started and published ready=true.
• The runtime loaded the expected app name, source kind, and window metadata.
• The main window exists and is focused/open.
• The JavaScript-to-Zig bridge can round-trip a request through native automate bridge.
• Builtin window/WebView commands work when exercised by a smoke test.
• Reload requests are accepted by the runtime.
• Real pixels of retained-canvas (gpu_surface) views: native automate screenshot <view-label> renders the view's current canvas frame through the deterministic CPU reference renderer and writes a PNG artifact. Two captures of an unchanged scene are byte-identical, so screenshots can back golden-image or "did the UI change" checks.

What automation cannot verify

• Screenshots of WebView content. screenshot covers gpu_surface canvas views only; there is no DOM/WebView pixel capture.
• Arbitrary DOM queries and clicks.
• Browser network assertions.

Prerequisites

Build/run an app with automation enabled. Generated examples usually expose -Dautomation=true:

zig build run -Dplatform=macos -Dautomation=true

Repository examples may have specialized steps:

zig build run-webview -Dplatform=macos -Dautomation=true
zig build test-webview-smoke -Dplatform=macos

The runner must pass an automation server into RuntimeOptions:

const server = native_sdk.automation.Server.init(io, ".zig-cache/native-sdk-automation", "My App");
var runtime = native_sdk.Runtime.init(.{
    .platform = my_platform,
    .automation = server,
});

Apps built without -Dautomation=true usually ignore automation files.

Commands

native automate wait
native automate assert 'gpu_nonblank=true' 'role=button name="Reset"'
native automate assert --absent 'error event='
native automate list
native automate snapshot
native automate reload
native automate screenshot inbox-canvas
native automate screenshot inbox-canvas 2
native automate widget-action canvas 2 press
native automate widget-click canvas 3
native automate widget-hold canvas 3
native automate widget-context-press canvas 3
native automate widget-drag canvas 4 0.25 0.82
native automate widget-wheel canvas 5 18
native automate widget-key canvas tab
native automate widget-key canvas cmd+c
native automate widget-pinch canvas 1.5
native automate widget-pinch canvas 0.5 120 80
native automate profile on
native automate profile off
native automate bridge '{"id":"smoke","command":"native.ping","payload":{"source":"automation"}}'

If using the repository-built CLI:

zig-out/bin/native automate wait
zig-out/bin/native automate snapshot

Snapshot assertions (automate assert)

Prefer native automate assert over snapshot | grep chains: it polls, so no sleeps, and its failure output carries the evidence (each missing pattern plus the snapshot tail).

native automate assert 'gpu_nonblank=true' 'role=button name="Reset"' 'count: 0'
native automate assert --timeout-ms 10000 '4 open'
native automate assert --absent 'error event=' 'dispatch_errors=[1-9]'

Semantics:

• Every argument is a regex that must match somewhere in snapshot.txt. The command polls (100ms interval) until all match, then exits 0.
• --timeout-ms <n> bounds the polling (default 30000). On timeout it prints missing: <pattern> for each unmatched pattern, the last 20 snapshot lines, and exits non-zero — CI-friendly, no wrapper script needed.
• --absent inverts the whole invocation: every pattern must NOT match (poll until gone). Mix presence and absence by running two invocations.
• Supported regex subset: literals, ., postfix * + ?, line anchors ^/$, classes [a-z]/[^0-9], and \d \w \s (with uppercase negations). No groups or alternation — pass multiple patterns instead.
• Quote patterns in single quotes so the shell leaves ", $, and \d alone.

Standard workflow

1. Start the app with automation enabled.
2. Run native automate wait to block until snapshot.txt contains ready=true.
3. Run native automate assert '<pattern>' ... for state checks, or native automate snapshot to eyeball app/window/source metadata.
4. Run native automate list to inspect window summaries.
5. Run native automate bridge '...' for bridge round-trip checks.
6. Use native automate widget-action <view-label> <widget-id> <action> [value] to exercise retained canvas widget actions. set_text routes through the SAME input path real typing uses (focus, select-all, then a text-input event), so a TEA app's on_input mirror receives the edits and model state stays consistent with the on-screen field — it is not a presentation-only write.
7. Use native automate widget-click <view-label> <widget-id> to exercise pointer-style retained widget routing. widget-hold <view-label> <widget-id> drives a press-and-hold through the same path — pointer down, the reserved hold timer fired, then the suppressed release — so on_hold Msgs are live-drivable (a target without on_hold degrades to the click a real long press is). widget-context-press <view-label> <widget-id> is the secondary click: it presents the widget's context menu, or dispatches on_hold immediately when the route declares none.
8. Use native automate widget-drag <view-label> <widget-id> <start-x-ratio> <end-x-ratio> [start-y-ratio end-y-ratio] for continuous pointer controls.
9. Use native automate widget-wheel <view-label> <widget-id> <delta-y> for retained widget scroll input. Wheel targets must be interactive/scrollable widgets — a plain layout column or text node is not a wheel target; aim at the scroll/list widget id from the snapshot. Failures land in the snapshot as named reasons: error event=automation.widget_wheel name=WheelTargetUnknown|WheelTargetNotInteractive|WheelTargetHasEmptyBounds detail="<command args>".
10. Use native automate widget-key <view-label> <key> [text] for focused retained widget keyboard input. The key accepts modifier chords — cmd+a, cmd+c, cmd+v, cmd+x, ctrl+shift+arrowleft (cmd sets the primary shortcut modifier on every platform) — so select-all/copy/cut/paste and shift-extended selection are drivable; after a copy, widget lines in the snapshot show the live selection as selection=a..b, and the copied text lands on the real system clipboard (pbpaste on macOS).
11. Use native automate widget-pinch <view-label> <scale> [x y] for trackpad pinch gestures against a gpu-surface view: the runtime dispatches the real pinch_begin/pinch_change/pinch_end platform events, with one change carrying scale - 1. <scale> is the FINAL multiplicative zoom for the gesture — the cumulative gesture scale (the product of 1 + delta) lands exactly on it — 1.5 zooms in 50%, 0.5 zooms out to half. The optional anchor point is view-local points, defaulting to the view center. Apps hear it through the pinch channel (Options.on_pinch / the TS core's pinchMsg).
12. Use native automate screenshot <view-label> [scale] to capture the named gpu_surface view's canvas as screenshot-<view-label>.png (the CLI prints the artifact path and waits for the file).
13. Before driving an app-menu command, inspect the snapshot's command id="..." catalog and app-menu / app-menu-item rows to prove the running app loaded the expected app.zon or runner declarations. Then use native automate menu-command <id> to dispatch the same .menu_command platform event a real selection emits; the verb remains a raw event injector, so the snapshot receipt is what validates registration.
14. Use native automate tray-action <item-id> for the primary status item, or native automate tray-action <status-item-id> <item-id> for an explicit item. Both select a dropdown row through the same platform event a real menu-bar click emits (command dispatch with source .tray). Live items appear in snapshot.txt as tray #status-id title="..." visible=... items=N followed by tray-item #item-id ... rows — the menu bar is outside every window capture, so this is the automation evidence for every model-driven item. Unknown id pairs degrade into the dispatch-error ring as automation.tray_action.
15. Use native automate reload to request a WebView reload.
16. Use native automate profile on to enable per-stage frame timing: while on, snapshot.txt carries a frame_profile line with rolling p50/p90/max microseconds per pipeline stage (rebuild, layout, reconcile, emit, a11y, plan, patch, encode, present, host_decode, host_draw), each with a lifetime sample count (<stage>_n=). Drive some interactions, then native automate snapshot | grep -o 'frame_profile.*' to read where frame time goes; profile off stops recording and drops the line. Turning it on starts a fresh sample window.

Screenshots

screenshot <view-label> [scale] asks the runtime to rasterize the view's current retained canvas frame through the deterministic CPU reference renderer — the same pixel path the Linux software presentation uses — and publish it as an uncompressed PNG at .zig-cache/native-sdk-automation/screenshot-<view-label>.png. The file is written atomically (temp file + rename), so its presence means the PNG is complete.

Determinism semantics:

• Screenshots render at scale 1 by default regardless of the display's backing scale, so an unchanged scene produces byte-identical PNGs from capture to capture on the same machine. Pass an explicit scale (for example 2) for high-DPI pixel dimensions.
• Screenshots use the live retained scene, including live design tokens and platform text measurement (CoreText on macOS): the layout matches what is on screen. Glyphs are rasterized by the reference renderer from the bundled faces, not by the platform's font rasterizer, so screenshots are a deterministic layout/structure/color signal rather than a platform font-rendering signal.
• Cross-machine byte-identity is only guaranteed where text metrics are deterministic (the null platform's estimator). On platforms with a native text measurement provider, text widths can differ between OS versions, so compare screenshots taken on the same machine or assert on properties (dimensions, changed/unchanged) rather than exact bytes across machines.
• OS-level captures (screencapture -x on macOS) are NOT a substitute: in a shell without Screen Recording permission they exit 0 and silently return wallpaper-only images with no app window in them. If you shell out for a real-pixel capture, verify the image is not blank/wallpaper before trusting it; automate screenshot plus a semantics snapshot is the reliable pair.

Bridge smoke test pattern

The request must be JSON with an ID, command, and payload:

native automate bridge '{"id":"smoke","command":"native.ping","payload":{"source":"automation"}}'

Automation sends the request with origin zero://inline. The app's bridge policy must allow that origin or the call will reject with permission_denied. For packaged asset origins, app code often allows zero://app; for automation smoke tests, add zero://inline only when the test needs it.

Expected response shape depends on the handler. A typical native.ping handler returns:

{"id":"smoke","ok":true,"result":{"message":"pong","count":1}}

If the command fails, inspect the bridge error code:

• unknown_command: no handler registered or wrong command name.
• permission_denied: origin or permission policy blocked it.
• handler_failed: Zig handler returned an error or invalid JSON.
• payload_too_large: request exceeded bridge limits.

File protocol

The default directory is .zig-cache/native-sdk-automation/, resolved against the CLI's CURRENT WORKING DIRECTORY — run native automate from the app project's directory (where the app was launched). The dir is created by the running app, never by the CLI: a command sent from the wrong cwd fails loudly (error: no automation dir at <abs path>) instead of queueing into a dir no app reads, and every queued command prints the absolute dir it wrote to — check that line when a command seems to do nothing.

Files:

• snapshot.txt: app name, readiness, source kind, source size, window metadata, accessibility summary. The ready=true line also carries protocol=<n> (the CLI/app handshake: the CLI refuses snapshots — and command queues to a live app — whose protocol version is not its own, naming both versions; the fix is rebuilding whichever binary is stale and comparing native version), dispatch_errors=<total> and dropped_trace_records=<total>, and recent degraded handler/update errors appear as error event=<tag> name=<ErrorName> timestamp_ns=... lines — a handler error no longer exits the app, so grep these to notice one happened. While profile on is active, a frame_profile <stage>_p50_us=... <stage>_p90_us=... <stage>_max_us=... <stage>_n=... line follows the header with per-stage frame timing. The header also carries markup_watch=armed|off — whether the markup hot-reload watch is armed (armed only in builds where the app wired .markup with a watch_path and io, or registered compiled fragments through fragment_watch — i.e. Debug dev builds).
• windows.txt: window list.
• command.txt: command input written by CLI and consumed by runtime. The slot is single-entry and the app consumes one command per presented frame: native automate <command> WAITS for the running app to consume it and prints delivered <action> -> <dir> on success — it refuses/fails loudly instead of silently overwriting an unconsumed command, and exits non-zero if the app never consumes it.
• bridge-response.txt: last bridge response.
• screenshot-<view-label>.png: deterministic reference-rendered PNG of a gpu_surface view, written by the screenshot command.

The runtime polls command.txt. After processing a command, it writes done.

Debugging automation failures

If native automate wait times out with NO snapshot file at all, it prints a teaching error naming the automation dir it watched and pointing at -Dautomation=true and the working directory — start from that message. Otherwise:

1. Confirm the app is still running.
2. Confirm it was built with -Dautomation=true.
3. Confirm the runner passes automation into Runtime.init.
4. Check .zig-cache/native-sdk-automation/snapshot.txt.
5. Delete stale files in .zig-cache/native-sdk-automation/ and restart the app.
6. Run with more tracing, for example zig build run -Dtrace=all.

If the CLI reports an automation protocol mismatch (or a snapshot with no protocol version): the native binary and the app were built from different framework versions — rebuild the older side (stale zig-out/bin copies of the CLI are the classic cause; native version prints the commit the binary was built from).

Stale INSTANCES are called out too: automate verbs print a LOUD warning when the publishing app's process started BEFORE the newest binary in zig-out/bin was built — a leftover instance from an earlier run impersonating the new build. Kill it and relaunch the fresh binary before trusting any snapshot.

If snapshot says no app connected:

• The automation directory may not exist yet.
• The app may be running from a different working directory.
• The app may be built without automation.
• The app may not have reached runtime startup.

If bridge automation fails:

• Check command name spelling.
• Check app handler registration.
• Check bridge policy origins for zero://inline.
• Check runtime permissions.
• Check that the handler returns valid JSON.

CI and smoke tests

Use automation for minimal integration confidence:

zig build test-webview-smoke -Dplatform=macos

A good smoke test:

1. Builds an example with -Dautomation=true and -Djs-bridge=true.
2. Starts the app in a GUI-capable session.
3. Waits for readiness.
4. Verifies snapshot metadata (automate assert with the patterns that matter).
5. Sends native.ping.
6. Exercises builtin windows/WebViews if the app enables them.
7. Fails on timeout or unexpected bridge response.

Apps scaffolded with native init --full ship this as .github/workflows/ci.yml (the zero-config default scaffold skips CI): a null-platform zig build test job plus a Linux Xvfb smoke job that launches the binary, runs automate wait, asserts on the snapshot with automate assert, and checks a non-empty automate screenshot artifact. Extend that file rather than writing grep chains by hand.

Do not use automation for exhaustive UI testing. It is a runtime and bridge smoke layer.

Notes

• Automation is compile-time gated: apps built without -Dautomation=true ignore automation files.
• Screenshots cover retained-canvas (gpu_surface) views only; WebView pixels are not captured.
• WebView DOM interaction is intentionally out of scope for this file-based automation layer.
• Use native skills get core --full for app architecture, bridge policy, packaging, and debugging context.