simplex-chat/scripts/ci/desktop-linux

Desktop app CI on Linux

.github/workflows/desktop-linux.yml builds the desktop app from the branch on a GitHub runner (Ubuntu 24.04), runs its JVM tests (:common:desktopTest), and drives the app on a virtual display: onboarding to the chat list, then the chat list with the toolbar at the bottom (the default) and at the top. On request it also runs Claude Code driving the same path, a test backend, and the latest release as a baseline. With the test backend, both the scripted test and Claude also search the test directory and a SimpleX name in both layouts.

Running it

The workflow runs only when asked, on any branch, by a run tag in the pushed commit's message or by hand from the Actions tab: App tests on GitHub's runners lists the tags and inputs.

Every run builds the core library, and the backend when it's asked for, from the branch's own Haskell code. It reuses an earlier build only when the sources are unchanged, as an artifact of the same branch named after a hash of its sources (30 days): for the core src/**, cabal.project, simplex-chat.cabal, PRIVACY.md and the build scripts, for the backend src/**, the CLI's and the directory's sources, cabal.project, simplex-chat.cabal and its build script. So a branch that changes core and app code together tests both. The workflow saves no Actions caches, which this repository evicts within hours and shares with build.yml.

Jobs

Job	Does	Time
plan	chooses the jobs, finds earlier core and backend builds	10 s
core	scripts/desktop/build-lib-linux.sh via build-core.sh	skipped when reused, about 24 min not
app	the app (:desktop:createDistributable), desktopTest, smoke-test.sh	about 12 min: build 4.5, desktopTest 0.5, smoke test 3.5 (about 25 with the backend's searches)
claude (opt-in)	after app passed: its distributable at the first screen, or with the backend set up at the chat list, then Claude Code drives it	about 4 min, Claude 3 (about 15 with the backend's search test)
backend (opt-in)	build-backend.sh: simplex-chat, simplex-directory-service, and smp-server from the simplexmq commit cabal.project pins	about 30 min, skipped when reused
release (opt-in)	the latest release's .deb for this Ubuntu, onboarding only, to tell a branch's failure from the runner's	1.5 min

Queueing for a runner adds from under a minute to 20 minutes. Results are artifacts: desktop-smoke-test (numbered screenshots, the text OCR read from each, steps.log, checks.txt, app.log), desktop-test-report, desktop-claude-test, and the backend's logs; desktop-app, the distributable for the Claude job, is kept a day. The job summaries list the checks, the desktopTest results and the Claude usage.

Scripts

• ui: the UI driver. Compose for Desktop has no accessibility tree on Linux, so it finds text on screenshots by OCR (tesseract) and acts with xdotool on an Xvfb display. ui alone prints its commands: start (with app settings), shot, text, find, wait, click, click-text, scroll, type, key, avatar (a profile image's colour), ink (a text's height), do (several in a row), stop. screen-text.py, screen-colour.py and screen-ink.py are its helpers.
• smoke-test.sh <app dir> <out dir> [start|onboarding|setup|backend|search]: the scripted cases; the default is onboarding and both layouts. setup also creates a local group and makes the test SMP server the app's only names server; backend does that, connects to the seeded name, and checks both layouts; search, which the workflow runs when the backend started, also searches in both layouts: "Search in Directory" for "ci seed", and the full search for the name seeded with Enter (the local chat, the Names part, the Directory part, in order), and with the toolbar at the bottom the full search in the New chat sheet, checking headers, rows, avatars, counts and the cards hidden while results show. It then joins ci_channel from its Directory row and checks, in both layouts, the note "All results on this page are already in your chats" when the typed ci_channel finds only the listed chat, and, with "seeded notes" open and ci seed typed, ci_channel as its chat's row in the Directory part (OCR reads no # before its name and no "Join channel" next to it; #ci_group keeps "Join group") that opens the channel without an alert; and the same row in the New chat sheet. The search case makes 129 checks (106 before the known-chat ones).
• backend.sh start <tar.gz> <dir> / resume <tar.gz> <dir> / stop <dir>: the test backend, below; resume starts the same backend again from a stopped work dir, for the Claude job.
• claude-test.sh, claude-test.md (the prompt), claude-search.md (the prompt when the backend runs), claude-scope (whether the prompt uses the test backend), claude-guard.py, claude-usage.py: the Claude job.
• build-core.sh, install-core.sh, build-backend.sh, earlier-run.sh, release-app.sh, test-summary.py: builds, reuse and reports.

The test backend

backend.sh starts, on the runner, with CLI peers:

• a chat relay (--relay --headless) and a directory service on the preset servers;
• a group ci_group and a channel ci_channel with letter avatars as large as the apps make them (avatar), registered and approved by the admin ci_admin, and found by a new user who sends the directory "ci seed", and by a search request as the app sends it (/_service_request), which must page through them, as their images don't fit in one response;
• an SMP server on 127.0.0.1:5223 whose [NAMES] section asks names-resolver.py, and a contact ci_contact whose address it resolves as seeded.testing, checked with a connect plan from another client.

It writes the directory's address to <dir>/directory-link and the SMP server's to <dir>/names-server. The app reaches the names server only with private routing set to unknown servers (ui start … NetworkSMPProxyMode=Unknown), since the preset proxies can't reach 127.0.0.1, and with the test server's receiving role off: a directory can't answer requests whose reply queue is on it. The workflow points the app at the test directory before building it (DIRECTORY_SERVICE_LINK in DirectorySearch.kt, the only change it makes to app sources).

The Claude job

It needs the GitHub environment app-sim-claude with the secret CLAUDE_CODE_OAUTH_TOKEN, a Claude subscription token. Which branches may use it is decided only by that environment's branch rule in the repository settings: on a branch the rule doesn't allow, a requested Claude run fails at the environment check. It runs once the app job has passed, on that job's distributable, one per branch at a time. The token goes only to the step that runs claude; claude-test.sh passes it to the claude process alone, and every ui call unsets it too. The job starts the test backend when claude-scope says backend: yes, as it does on this branch; a run that asks for Claude must then ask for the backend too, or the plan job fails. The app job built the distributable pointing at its own backend's directory, which a new backend would not have, so the app job saves that backend's stopped work dir (the artifact desktop-backend-state, without the binaries) and the Claude job starts it again with backend.sh resume: the same servers' keys and databases, so the same addresses. That artifact holds the test backend's databases and server keys, unencrypted, and like every artifact of this public repository anyone signed in to GitHub can download it while it is kept (a day); with it, someone could act as the test directory or relay while the Claude job runs and show the session crafted results. This is an accepted risk: these are throwaway test identities, the session has no shell and no token in reach of its tools, so what is at stake is the test's integrity, and encrypting the state would need a key only the two jobs hold, a second secret, which this repository's rules for the Claude job don't allow. With the backend it sets the app up at the chat list (smoke-test.sh … setup) and gives Claude claude-search.md, the online search test, in place of the onboarding path in claude-test.md: the directory and full searches in both layouts (parts A and B), then part C, which joins ci_channel from its Directory row and checks that later searches show it as a chat (the note for a page of chats already listed, its chat row in the Directory part of the chat list and of New chat, opening without an alert). The job installs Claude Code at the version the iOS workflow pins too, and runs claude-haiku-5-5 with --max-turns 120, --max-budget-usd 3 and the iOS sessions' other flags (--restricted, --permission-prompts none, --effort high). Its Bash runs only single ui commands (claude-guard.py, a PreToolUse hook: Claude Code runs read-only commands without asking in every permission mode). Before anything the session wrote is printed or uploaded, claude-test.sh checks it for the token; if it's there, the output, transcript, Claude Code's stderr and the guard log are deleted and the job fails. It passes when Claude's final message ends with CLAUDE-TEST: PASS; report.md, the transcript, the guard's log and claude-usage.json are in desktop-claude-test.

Cost

The runners are free for this public repository. A Claude run spends the subscription's usage limits, which interactive sessions share: Haiku 5.5 does this smoke path in 15 to 30 turns, 0.01 to 0.02 USD estimated at API prices (Claude Code's estimate, not a bill on a subscription).