fix(cli): give root-level mocha hooks the suite file, as the non-CLI flow does by rounak610 · Pull Request #308 · browserstack/wdio-browserstack-service

rounak610 · 2026-10-26T14:37:36Z

What is this about?

On the CLI flow, a Mocha before / beforeEach / afterEach declared outside any describe reaches the BrowserStack binary with no file path. Every test passes, yet the build ends as timed out on Test Reporting & Analytics.

Mocha attaches such hooks to its root suite, and the root suite has no file. The CLI mocha framework read only test.file, so these hooks went out without test_file_path / test_location. The binary could not build the hook's file details, so it dropped the hook's HookRunStarted / HookRunFinished events. The test's TestRunFinished still referenced the hook id, so TRA kept a hook open that never closed. The build timeout then marked the whole build timed out.

The non-CLI flow never had this. Its insights handler falls back to the current suite file (test.file || this._suiteFile, fed from beforeSuite). This PR gives the CLI flow the same behaviour:

WdioMochaTestFramework.setSuiteFile(). beforeSuite feeds it on the CLI flow, the same call the non-CLI flow makes on its insights handler.
trackHookEvents and getTestData use test.file || this._suiteFile. The getTestData fallback was already there, commented out.

Root-level before. MochaAdapter registers wdio's beforeSuite as a root beforeAll only after the spec files have loaded, so a root-level before runs ahead of it, while the suite file is still unset. The service's before() hook runs before Mocha starts, so it now seeds the suite file from the worker's spec. The runner hands specs over as file:// URLs; they are converted the same way MochaAdapter converts them for suite.file. beforeSuite still updates the file, but a suite with no file no longer clears it. A root-level before on the non-CLI flow has no file either; there the hook events don't go through the binary, so nothing breaks.

Hooks declared inside a describe keep their own file, and nothing else changes.

When it shows up: CLI-flow hooks only started carrying ids in 9.30. Before that they were not reported at all. So suites with root-level hooks have hit this since 9.30.

Paired binary hardening (the binary also stops throwing on a hook with no file, which covers already-released SDK versions): browserstack/browserstack-binary#1988.

Verification

End to end, on real BrowserStack sessions. The sample spec has a root-level beforeEach / afterEach, a before / after in one describe, and its own beforeEach in a second describe. It runs 2 tests, both passing in every run.

`@wdio/browserstack-service`	binary errors `The "to" argument must be of type string`	root-level hooks' file
9.41.0 (published)	8: 2 tests × root `beforeEach`/`afterEach` start + finish	none
9.41.0 + this PR	0	`test/specs/root-hooks.spec.js` on all 8 hooks

A second sample adds a root-level before and after to the same spec (10 hooks in all):

`@wdio/browserstack-service`	binary errors	root-level `before`
9.41.0 + this PR without the root-`before` seed (earlier head)	2 (its start + finish)	no file; `HookRunStarted` / `HookRunFinished` never sent, still referenced by the first test's `TestRunFinished`
9.41.0 + this PR	0	`test/specs/root-before.spec.js`; every one of the 10 hooks carries the spec file

Unit tests:

tests/cli/wdioMochaTestFramework.test.ts (+3):
- a file-less hook gets the suite file;
- a describe-level hook keeps its own file;
- test data uses the same fallback.
tests/service.test.ts (+3):
- beforeSuite hands the suite file to the CLI mocha framework;
- before() seeds it from the worker's spec (a file:// URL, decoded to the path);
- a later suite with no file keeps the seeded spec.
The two before() tests fail without the seed. Both files pass in full on Node 22: 157/157 and 37/37. eslint and tsc --noEmit are clean.

Related Jira task/s

SDK-8004 (TRA SDK ingestion stability)

Release (mandatory for every PR — required for the `ready-for-review` label)

Version bump: (required — tick exactly one)

minor (backwards-compatible feature)
patch (bug fix or other small change)

Release notes type: (optional)

New Feature
Bug Fix
Other Improvement

Release notes (customer-facing): (optional but encouraged)

Fixed builds being reported as timed out on Test Reporting & Analytics when a Mocha before / beforeEach / afterEach hook is declared outside any describe block.

Release notes (internal): (required — engineer-facing; what actually changed / why)

The CLI mocha framework now falls back to the current suite file for hooks and test data (test.file || this._suiteFile, fed from beforeSuite), matching the non-CLI insights handler.
service.before() seeds that file from the worker's spec, because a root-level before runs ahead of the first beforeSuite. A suite with no file no longer clears it.
Root-level hooks previously went out with no file. The binary dropped their HookRun events, and TestRunFinished's reference to them left a never-closed hook that timed the build out.

Checklist

Ready to review
Has it been tested locally?

PR Validations

Run Tests: Comment RUN_TESTS to trigger sanity tests.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

…flow does Mocha attaches a beforeEach/afterEach declared outside any describe to its root suite, which has no file, so the CLI flow sent these hooks with no path. The binary threw on the missing path and dropped their HookRunStarted/Finished events while the test still referenced the hook id, leaving a never-closed hook that timed the build out. The non-CLI flow falls back to the current suite file (set in beforeSuite); the CLI mocha framework now does the same for hooks and test data. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

coderabbitai · 2026-10-26T14:37:46Z

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github-actions · 2026-10-26T14:56:50Z

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