test(config): cover error propagation and live config loading

[decyjphr]

Why

PR #1052 addresses config-read failures being masked by a TypeError, but yadhav/fix-recent-issues already preserves the original error: commit 5fac715f271114a0d23d020cea0a0eed045fde0d removed the swallowing catch, and fbd78627ff6f380f472245497ceb0cf7b36e5e93 retained that behavior during the Octokit migration. The missing piece is dedicated regression coverage, not another production fix.

Approach

• Adapt the tests from source commit fe88b3a4de6fb0ae05fd978d0fa07adba0c8431b, covering original error identity for HTTP 403/500 and network failures, 404-to-null behavior, directories/symlinks, YAML parsing and empty-config semantics, and configured owner/repo/path/ref handling.
• Exercise the actual full-sync entry point and NOP reporting so original errors reach failed checks and PR comments without becoming a TypeError.
• Add smoke phase 23 for real config loading, empty YAML, directory responses, and missing-file/ref 404s. It owns a temporary branch, refuses to replace an existing branch, and attempts cleanup even on failure. Document running it alongside existing validation phase 10.

No production code, dependencies, or batching/result-reporting behavior changes. The branch is based on target commit 188c604929201774699fd1d8dabd445358cee9e8.

Validation

Using Node 22.12.0 / npm 10.9.0:

• Original seven PR tests passed against unchanged target production code.
• npm run test:unit -- --runInBand --reporters=default --silent: 821 passed, 12 skipped; focused loader/reporting tests: 26 passed.
• New tests pass Standard and ESLint; smoke syntax and diff checks pass.
• node smoke-test.js --phase 10,23: exact 0 -> 10 -> 23 -> 9, 10 passed, 0 failed, with no fatal error or timeout. Real server responsiveness and check conclusions were verified. Independent before/after snapshots matched, preserving 15 existing refs, 12 property definitions, and the admin ruleset; owned resources/processes were cleaned up.

Known limitations

Seven integration suites fail before executing tests because of the existing Probot ESM/Jest incompatibility. The smoke script retains nine baseline lint errors, with no new diagnostics.

Live validation used an uncommitted session-only auth/API/webhook guard. A retrospective audit found Probot reloaded .env after the preload, so intended blank enterprise/cron environment overrides were not proven effective: enterprise discovery ran, and cron registration was not instrumented. Saved guarded GitHub traffic contains only test-installation token requests and permitted routes, but is not an all-network trace. Forwarding was intentionally enabled and the server used IPv6 loopback. These qualifications do not change the recorded functional assertions or cleanup results. Injected 403/500/network scenarios were local tests, not counted as live smoke assertions.

[Copilot]

Copilot review overview

🟡 Changes recommended

Update smoke-test cleanup and remove the unused test fixture.

Review effort: Lite
Findings: 1

Open (1)

• Use deleteBranch helper for idempotent branch cleanup · New

What changed in this PR

Adds regression and smoke coverage for config-loading error propagation without changing production code.

Changes:

• Expands config, YAML, path, and error-identity tests.
• Adds full-sync and NOP reporting tests.
• Adds smoke-test Phase 23 and documents its usage.

File	Summary	Review notes
test/​unit/​lib/​configManager.test.js	Config loader regression coverage	—
test/​unit/​index-config-errors.test.js	Full-sync and NOP error reporting tests	Remove unused context fixture.
smoke-test.js	Live config-loading smoke phase	Use deleteBranch for idempotent cleanup.
README.md	Documents Phase 23	—

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