Overview

The worker is an Axum server that exposes The Test Cabinet’s run functionality over an HTTP API. It is effectively the CLI — or a headless Tauri instance — with a web API in front of it instead of a command line: the same core functionality, reached over the network rather than from a shell.

Its purpose is to let test cases be invoked on a remote machine. A run needs a container runtime and meaningful compute; the worker lets that machine be separate from wherever a person is driving things, so runs can be launched on a dedicated host (or several) instead of on a laptop.

Relationship to the Core

Like every other runner, the worker re-implements none of a run’s behavior. It translates HTTP requests into core calls and streams the results back:

• It accepts a request to run a test case — a version, a variant, a harness, and a model — and drives the run through the core.
• It surfaces the run’s live harness events over the API so a caller can render progress remotely, exactly as the CLI prints them locally.
• It produces the same run record a local run would, and can publish on the same terms.

Because it is a runner, the worker’s host needs a supported container runtime, and it resolves test case and container definitions from, and publishes results to, the backend. Like the backend, it is intended to live on the private network rather than be exposed publicly.

Status

The worker has not been implemented yet.