Tech Debt: Containerized Acceptance Testing Strategy (E2E)

[sagar-code-git]

Tech Debt: Containerized Acceptance Testing Strategy (E2E)

Context

During acceptance testing we identified a gap in the async-request-backend repository:
there is no defined strategy for building and running containers specifically for end‑to‑end acceptance tests.

• Current State: Unit and integration tests exist, but they run in isolation or with mocked components.
• Risk: The contract between the request‑api (producer) and request‑processor (consumer) may break without detection until deployment.
• Impact: Lack of reproducible acceptance testing increases the chance of regressions in asynchronous workflows.

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Problem Statement

We need a containerized strategy to spin up all required services (Postgres, Request API, Request Processor, Celery worker queue) so acceptance tests can run against a real environment.
This is technical debt because the absence of such a strategy makes our testing incomplete and fragile.

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Proposed Remediation

Adopt a “Spin Up, Trigger” strategy:

• Infrastructure: Create a dedicated docker-compose.test.yml to spin up Postgres,celery sqs, Request API, and Request Processor.
• Test Logic: Update acceptance tests to issue a real HTTP POST to the API and poll the status endpoint until the Worker updates the DB to COMPLETED.
• CI/CD: Update GitHub Actions workflow (test.yml) to launch these containers before running the test suite.
• Maintenance: Update Makefiles to separate unit tests from containerized acceptance tests.

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Tasks

• Create docker-compose.test.yml with Postgres, celery sqs, Request API, Request Processor.
• Ensure Dockerfiles support environment variables (DATABASE_URL, CELERY_BROKER_URL).
• Update acceptance tests to use real HTTP requests and polling.
• Modify GitHub Actions workflow to run acceptance tests in containers.
• Update Makefiles to split unit vs. acceptance test targets.

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Acceptance Criteria

• Running docker compose locally starts all required services.
• GitHub Action acceptance tests job passes green.
• No mocked databases; acceptance scope must use containerized Postgres.

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