[Doc] Avocado instrumented lifecycle

This commit adds a new chapter to the reference guide about avocado instrumented tests and its lifecycle. Reference: avocado-framework#5995 Signed-off-by: Jan Richter <[email protected]>
richtja · Aug 27, 2024 · f39048e · f39048e
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diff --git a/docs/source/guides/reference/chapters/avocado_instrumented.rst b/docs/source/guides/reference/chapters/avocado_instrumented.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+
+The Avocado instrumented lifecycle
+==================================
+
+The Avocado instrumented test goes through multiple phases during
+its execution. This page describes in detail each of those phases
+and overall lifecycle of instrumented test execution.
+
+INIT:
+    This is the initialization state of test. Each test is
+    created in this state. During the initialization, the test
+    attributes are set, environment variables are created, and test
+    skip conditions are evaluated.
+
+SETUP:
+    The test is in this state when Test.setUp() method is being
+    executed.
+
+TEST:
+    During this state, the actual test is running.
+
+TEARDOWN:
+    During this state, the Test.tearDown() method is being
+    executed to make clean up after testing.
+
+FINISHED:
+    This state is the end of the test's lifecycle, and the test
+    is in this state when the testing and clean up is finished.
+    during this phase, the test results are reported to runner and
+    the testing is finished.
+
+The whole Test lifecycle is represented by diagram::
+
+                    +--------+
+                    |        |
+                    |  INIT  +------------+
+                    |        |            |
+                    +----+---+            |
+                         |                |
+                         |                |
+                     Test|initialized     |
+                         |                |
+                         |            Test|skiped
+                    +----v----+           |
+                    |         |           |
+                    |  SETUP  +-----------+---+
+                    |         |           |   |
+                    +----+----+           |   |
+                         |                |   |
+                         |                |   |
+                     Test|setuped         |   |
+                         |                |   |
+                         |                |   |
+                    +----v---+            |   |
+                    |        |            |   |
+        +-----------+  TEST  <------------+   |
+        |           |        |                |
+        |           +----+---+           Setup|timeout
+        |                |                    |
+        |     Test finished or timeout        |
+        |                |                    |
+        |                |                    |
+        |         +------v-----+              |
+        |         |            |              |
+    Test|skiped   |  TEARDOWN  <--------------+
+        |         |            |
+        |         +------+-----+
+        |                |
+        |                |
+        | Teardown finished or timeout
+        |                |
+        |                |
+        |         +------v-----+
+        |         |            |
+        +--------->  FINISHED  |
+                  |            |
+                  +------------+
+
+Timeouts
+~~~~~~~~
+
+The avocado instrumented tests can be affected by three types of
+timeouts. Test timeout, Task timeout and Job timeout. All of these
+timeouts behaves the same from the point of view of Test’s lifecycle,
+but the lifecycle will change base on in which state the timeout was
+reached. Here is a description of different Test’s lifecycles base
+on the interruptions:
+
+Timeout in SETUP
+    INIT -> SETUP(interrupted) -> TEARDOWN -> FINISHED (ERROR)
+
+Timeout in TEST
+    INIT -> SETUP -> TEST(interrupted) -> TEARDOWN -> FINISHED (INTERRUPTED)
+
+Timeout in TEARDOWN
+    INIT -> SETUP -> TEST -> TEARDOWN(interrupted) -> FINISHED (ERROR)
+
+.. note:: If Task or Job timeout are reached after some other
+    interruption (test or task timeouts) the test is killed in
+    the phase where it is (probably TEARDOWN), and it won’t properly
+    finish.
diff --git a/docs/source/guides/reference/index.rst b/docs/source/guides/reference/index.rst
@@ -11,3 +11,4 @@ the core parts.
    :maxdepth: 2
 
    chapters/runners
+   chapters/avocado_instrumented