ci: streamline test job fan-out

[Ankit Jain (radical)]

[automated]

Description

PR CI now uses focused extension validation and five stable test-matrix lanes. This makes selector-driven skips and job names easier to interpret, while trusted extension release PRs avoid starting the full test workflow.

Root cause. Extension unit testing and VSIX packaging were embedded in tests.yml, so the release fast path had to thread an extensionReleaseOnly mode through the full workflow. The matrix splitter also maintained a sixth overflow lane even though the measured no-package matrix has 204 entries.

The fix. Extension unit testing and optional packaging now live in extension-unit-tests.yml, called directly by normal and release CI. Packaging still runs after unit-test failures when extension E2E needs the VSIX. The splitter emits five dependency lanes and fails explicitly if any lane exceeds GitHub's 256-job limit, rather than silently dropping tests. Static OS-qualified lane names remain distinct in CI timeline rendering, and selector routing covers both extension unit and E2E consumers.

Why the skipped extension-release job remains. It is the pre-existing, mutually exclusive fast path for trusted bot-authored extension release PRs. Ordinary PRs show it as skipped because GitHub renders conditional jobs in the check graph, but it consumes no runner time.

Coverage is unchanged. Normal PR CI still covers the rolling-build test set and adds the existing PR-only CLI E2E and starter-validation checks. The selector and enumeration criteria are unchanged; the passing run executed all 313 matrix entries exactly once plus all 34 extension E2E shards.

Validation.

• PR CI run 33117080669 passed for commit cccd63256d.
• The run executed all 313 matrix entries exactly once: 204 no-package, 12 Linux package, 12 Windows package, 0 macOS package, and 85 CLI-archive entries, with no overflow jobs.
• Extension unit tests, both VSIX package assertions, artifact upload, and all 34 extension E2E shards passed; every E2E shard downloaded the VSIX successfully.
• 71 focused workflow, selector, and matrix contracts, 10 focused extension production-gate tests, and 669 broader Infrastructure.Tests passed locally.
• actionlint reported no new diagnostics in the changed workflows.

Fixes # (issue)

Checklist

• Is this feature complete?
  • Yes. Ready to ship.
  • No. Follow-up changes expected.
• Are you including unit tests for the changes and scenario tests if relevant?
  • Yes
  • No
• Did you add public API?
  • Yes
    • If yes, did you have an API Review for it?
      • Yes
      • No
    • Did you add <remarks /> and <code /> elements on your triple slash comments?
      • Yes
      • No
  • No
• Does the change make any security assumptions or guarantees?
  • Yes
    • If yes, have you done a threat model and had a security review?
      • Yes
      • No
  • No

[github-actions]

🚀 Dogfood this PR with:

⚠️ WARNING: Do not do this without first carefully reviewing the code of this PR to satisfy yourself it is safe.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/aspire/main/eng/scripts/get-aspire-cli-pr.sh | bash -s -- 19758

Or

• Run remotely in PowerShell:

iex "& { $(irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/aspire/main/eng/scripts/get-aspire-cli-pr.ps1) } 19758"

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Streamlines CI by separating extension validation and consolidating test fan-out into five bounded lanes.

Changes:

• Extracts extension unit tests and optional VSIX packaging into a reusable workflow.
• Removes the overflow lane and fails matrices exceeding GitHub’s 256-job limit.
• Updates routing, documentation, job names, and contract tests.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 13 out of 13 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
.github/workflows/ci.yml	Calls focused extension validation for release PRs.
.github/workflows/tests.yml	Uses five named test lanes and the extracted extension workflow.
.github/workflows/extension-unit-tests.yml	Adds reusable extension unit testing and optional packaging.
eng/scripts/split-test-matrix-by-deps.ps1	Removes overflow splitting and enforces lane limits.
eng/scripts/expand-test-matrix-github.ps1	Updates matrix-splitting documentation.
eng/github-ci/test-trigger-map.yml	Routes extension workflow changes to unit and E2E validation.
tests/Infrastructure.Tests/WorkflowScripts/ExtensionReleaseFastPathWorkflowTests.cs	Verifies workflow extraction, callers, permissions, and lane names.
tests/Infrastructure.Tests/TestTriggerMap/TestTriggerMapTests.cs	Verifies extension workflow routing.
tests/Infrastructure.Tests/PowerShellScripts/SplitTestMatrixByDepsTests.cs	Tests five-lane output and limit failures.
tests/Infrastructure.Tests/PowerShellScripts/ExpandTestMatrixGitHubTests.cs	Updates end-to-end matrix assertions.
tests/Infrastructure.Tests/Pipelines/ExtensionE2eWorkflowTests.cs	Verifies VSIX production despite unit-test failures.
docs/ci/TestingOnCI.md	Documents the five-lane model and explicit limit failure.
docs/ci/ci-pipeline-optimizations.md	Removes the obsolete overflow lane.

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[github-actions]

Retrying the failed CI jobs for this pull request from the CI run attempt. The rerun is being tracked in the rerun attempt.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 14 out of 14 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

[Ankit Jain (radical)]

[automated] Superseded by #19761, which is based on #19688 so the dedicated extension-release job can be removed in favor of enforced test selection. The replacement is registered as the top of stack #19689 and its CI passed.