CDP UI Verification

"Rules" below is what counts as valid evidence. "Mechanics" is how to attach to the right renderer and repair auth. apps/desktop/scripts/cdp-smoke-integrations.ts is a working example script.

Rules

1. Target the correct app instance. Confirm and report the worktree, renderer URL/port, and active route before testing. Follow any task-provided CDP/auth guidance and verify the expected signed-in session. Another running desktop instance is not equivalent.
2. Reproduce the exact user journey. Use real browser input and visible UI navigation for the steps the user performs. Assigning DOM properties, invoking internal app APIs, or running component-only scripts is diagnostic support, not proof of end-to-end behavior.
3. Capture visual and numeric evidence. Take before/after screenshots paired with relevant CDP measurements (scrollTop, focused element, route, persisted state). Confirm the screenshot and the measured state agree.
4. Exercise the relevant lifecycle. Include the actual route change, workspace/pane/file switch, remount, or close/reopen from the report. A narrower synthetic flow cannot substitute for the reported interaction.
5. Treat a mismatch as an incomplete reproduction. If the test passes but the user still observes the bug, re-check the target instance, exact steps, input method, persisted keys, and lifecycle timing. Reproduce the failure before changing code; a synthetic smoke test does not disprove the report.
6. Use an evidence gate. For a reported bug or regression, do not claim verification until the original interaction demonstrably fails before the fix and passes after it under the same observations. For a new feature, record equivalent baseline evidence and demonstrate the expected behavior. State clearly which checks were end-to-end, which were synthetic, and whether screenshots were actually captured.

7. Test in the real layout, not a staged one. Do not rearrange the UI to make coordinates convenient (e.g. moving a target project next to the section under test) and then generalize from that pass. Layout-dependent failures live exactly in the configurations a staged setup removes: elements far apart, ambiguous zones between valid targets, scrolled containers, collapsed/empty states. Verify in the user's actual data shape; if a mutation was needed for setup, rerun the key journey in the unstaged arrangement too.

   Case study: sidebar drag-and-drop passed every staged test, then crashed with "Maximum update depth exceeded" in the real layout because closest-target collision oscillated across the large gap between the Pinned section and a bottom-of-list project.

8. Drive interactions adversarially, not just happy-path. A scripted A-to-B gesture proves the feature works once, not that it is stable. For anything continuous (drag-and-drop, resize, scroll-linked UI), also test: back-and-forth oscillation across boundaries, mid-gesture dwells (hold still 0.5-1s where layout can shift under a stationary pointer), long sweeps that trigger autoscroll, repeats of the same gesture, and runs with induced main-thread stalls (setInterval busy-loop, e.g. 120ms every 400ms) to force event batching. Watch for feedback loops where the interaction's own state change re-triggers its trigger (transfer → layout shift → re-measure → transfer). Capture console.error (hook it and assert empty afterward): "Maximum update depth exceeded" and "Cannot update a component while rendering" are regressions even when the screenshot looks fine.

Mechanics

These apply to the Electron desktop app in apps/desktop.

To check a change end-to-end against the real API/DB, drive the running dev app over CDP. Launch with an unused port, for example RENDERER_REMOTE_DEBUG_PORT=9222 bun dev (full stack; the app may restore a signed-in session), then attach via the page target's webSocketDebuggerUrl over a WebSocket (Bun built-in, no deps). Example: apps/desktop/scripts/cdp-smoke-integrations.ts.

Never assume port 9222 or attach to a renderer from another worktree. Multiple Paradev workspaces commonly run at once, each with different renderer, API, and CDP ports. Before testing:

1. Read this workspace's final DESKTOP_VITE_PORT and NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL values from the root .env.
2. Find the Electron process whose executable/parent command path is inside this workspace. Its renderer command line contains --remote-debugging-port=<port>; lsof -nP -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN can confirm the owning PID.
3. Fetch http://127.0.0.1:<port>/json/list and require a page target whose URL uses this workspace's DESKTOP_VITE_PORT. A responding CDP endpoint alone is not sufficient proof that it belongs to this branch.
4. Pass the matched values explicitly when using a script, e.g. RENDERER_REMOTE_DEBUG_PORT=<port> NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL=<api-origin> bun run apps/desktop/scripts/cdp-smoke-integrations.ts.

Verify /api/auth/get-session from inside the matched renderer before testing.

Repairing CDP auth

Check which setup script provisioned the workspace before repairing auth:

• .paradev/setup.local.sh creates a per-workspace local stack and runs the idempotent bun run db:seed-dev, but intentionally leaves sign-in as a separate step. If the account may be missing, rerun bun run db:seed-dev while the local DB stack is running.
• .paradev/setup.sh seeds paradev-dev-data/auth-token.enc from auth-token.enc in the installed app's home, ~/.paradev (prod_app_home in .paradev/lib/common.sh), when available. Rerunning it without --force can fill a missing token. Do not use --force merely to repair auth: it resets paradev-dev-data/ before reseeding.

The desktop hydrates a persisted token into an in-memory bearer-token closure. A raw Runtime.evaluate fetch cannot read that closure, and the local-dev sign-in button persists a bearer token but uses credentials: "omit"; neither guarantees the cookie required by a raw CDP probe. For a workspace created by setup.local.sh, repair the CDP session as follows:

1. Require a localhost API origin; never send dev credentials to a remote or shared API.
2. From apps/desktop (so workspace imports resolve), import DEV_EMAIL and DEV_PASSWORD from @superset/shared/dev-credentials; do not copy their literal values into scripts or logs.
3. Through Runtime.evaluate in the matched renderer, POST them to ${NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL}/api/auth/sign-in/email with JSON content type and credentials: "include". Do not print the returned token or response body.
4. Re-fetch /api/auth/get-session with credentials: "include" and require both session and session.activeOrganizationId before running the test.

This credentialed local-dev sign-in creates the browser session cookie needed by subsequent in-renderer fetches. If it fails, report the sign-in/session status codes only. For a non-local setup, use the app's normal sign-in flow; never substitute local dev credentials.

For a non-local workspace, the normal desktop flow intentionally restores an encrypted bearer token into the renderer's in-memory auth client without creating a browser cookie. If the renderer is on an authenticated route but a raw cookie-only probe returns no session, use Runtime.evaluate to import /lib/auth-client.ts from the renderer dev server and call authClient.getSession({ fetchOptions: { throw: false } }). This still verifies /api/auth/get-session through the app's real authenticated request path. Return only the status and session.activeOrganizationId; never call or print getAuthToken().

Do not use setup --force to fix a stale connection string, a missing CDP cookie, or a corrupt generated Next.js cache. First rerun the applicable setup script without force. If every API route returns Next.js's HTML 404, stop the dev stack, move apps/api/.next aside, and restart. --force is normally only appropriate when the user explicitly intends to replace the copied local/host databases and encrypted auth token. The stale-state signature in the next paragraph is the one explicit exception.

To run the local API against another database (a fresh Neon branch of production, say), passing DATABASE_URL in the environment is not enough: in development apps/api/next.config.ts reloads the root .env with override: true and puts the workspace's database back. The signs are "column ... does not exist" from a branch that has the column, and a sign-in that returns a user your edits on the branch no longer match. Change that database only through the root .env, or with a local, unpushed change to that guard, and check a query that only the target branch can answer. The Local Admin button signs in whichever user holds DEV_EMAIL in that database.

One failure signature where ./.paradev/setup.sh --force IS the fix (verified 2026-07-28): session restore hangs at "Restoring your session", the Local Admin sign-in button returns a bodyless 500, get-session returns 200, and a raw select 1 against DATABASE_URL may still succeed; the worktree's seeded dev state (Neon branch credentials in .env, auth-token.enc, copied DBs) has gone stale as a set. Rerunning with --force recreates the Neon branch, rewrites .env, and reseeds paradev-dev-data/ together, which restores sign-in. Two side effects to expect: any manual .env edits (e.g. a port remap) are wiped and must be re-applied, and paradev-dev-data/ is reset.

Use Runtime.evaluate (awaitPromise, returnByValue), not Network.* interception; sniffing misses React-Query-cached responses, and refetchInterval is paused while the window is backgrounded. After verifying the session through the applicable cookie or bearer path above, run requests inside the renderer. API below is the dev backend origin (NEXT_PUBLIC_API_URL, e.g. http://localhost:5881):

• Active org: local cookie flow uses fetch(API + "/api/auth/get-session", {credentials:"include"}); non-local bearer flow uses authClient.getSession({ fetchOptions: { throw: false } }). Require .session.activeOrganizationId.
• A tRPC query (bypasses the cache): GET API + "/api/trpc/<proc>?batch=1&input=" + encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify({"0":{json:<input>}})); response is [{result:{data:{json:...}}}].
• window.location.hash nav may not remount the route; call the endpoint directly instead.