chore(scripts): rename the local pre-push gate off ci, and guard it out of CI (#2146)

The root `ci` script was never what runs in GitHub CI, and the name worked
against us three ways: it collides with the built-in `npm ci` (which does
something else entirely and is one keystroke away), it invites the
cross-engine passes into a workflow by looking like the thing a workflow
should call, and it blurs "GitHub CI" and "the local gate" in every doc
that names it.

- Rename `ci` → `local:gate` and `ci:storybook` → `local:storybook`, with
  no back-compat alias: `npm run ci` now fails with npm's missing-script
  error, which prints the available scripts.

- Add `scripts/lib/workflow-gate.mjs` + its `test:scripts` suite, which
  runs over the repo's real `.github/workflows/**` and fails on an
  invocation of a `local:*` script, of a non-Chromium engine pass (derived
  from SUPPORTED_BROWSERS), or of `smoke:web:engine`, or on `SMOKE_BROWSER`
  set to anything but a literal `chromium`. It does not forbid
  `npm run smoke`, `smoke:web:chromium` or `smoke:tui` — those belong in CI
  and are there today. Comments are not scanned, so the workflow can still
  explain itself. This is the durable half; the rest is prose.

- Document the two-tier model once, in the root README ("Two tiers: GitHub
  CI and the local gate"), and point the other docs at it rather than
  restating the split.

- Sweep the ~40 stale references across README, AGENTS.md,
  .github/copilot-instructions.md, the client READMEs, the roadmap doc and
  the script headers. AGENTS.md and copilot-instructions.md change
  together, per the mirror rule.

No gate changes what it actually runs.

Signed-off-by: Cliff Hall <cliff@futurescale.com>
Signed-off-by: cliffhall <cliff@futurescale.com>

.github/copilot-instructions.md

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ The Inspector ships as one package with three clients (**Web**, **CLI**, **TUI**
 - **Avoid double casts (`as unknown as T`).** They erase all type safety and usually mean the real type is being worked around. Prefer a type guard, a narrower single cast, or fixing the underlying type. If genuinely unavoidable (a documented gap in a third-party type, or bridging structurally-identical shapes TS can't relate), it **must** carry an inline comment justifying why it's safe and why nothing better exists. An unjustified `as unknown as` is not acceptable in review.
 - Prefer inference, type guards, and precise annotations over assertions.
 - An `_` prefix is the intentionally-unused marker (`argsIgnorePattern` / `varsIgnorePattern` / `caughtErrorsIgnorePattern`).
-- **Never float a promise.** `@typescript-eslint/no-floating-promises` is `error` in all five ESLint scopes, so every promise must be awaited, `.catch(…)`-terminated, returned, or explicitly discarded with `void`. Prefer **holding and settling** it — a floated rejection surfaces in an unrelated file as an SDK-internal stack, which is how two un-held `callTool` calls failed the whole `npm run ci` chain (#1947). Reach for `void` only when the callee already owns its failures (it ends in a `catch`) or the caller genuinely cannot await (a sync effect body, an Ink key handler), and say which in a comment. In Storybook play functions, `expect(...)` from `storybook/test` is instrumented and returns a promise — it must be awaited.
+- **Never float a promise.** `@typescript-eslint/no-floating-promises` is `error` in all five ESLint scopes, so every promise must be awaited, `.catch(…)`-terminated, returned, or explicitly discarded with `void`. Prefer **holding and settling** it — a floated rejection surfaces in an unrelated file as an SDK-internal stack, which is how two un-held `callTool` calls failed the whole `npm run local:gate` chain (#1947). Reach for `void` only when the callee already owns its failures (it ends in a `catch`) or the caller genuinely cannot await (a sync effect body, an Ink key handler), and say which in a comment. In Storybook play functions, `expect(...)` from `storybook/test` is instrumented and returns a promise — it must be awaited.
 
 ## React and UI (web client)
 
@@ -102,11 +102,11 @@ Both exist and do different jobs. Theme files (`src/theme/<Component>.ts`) custo
 
 ## Gates and PR hygiene
 
-- `npm run format` before committing; **`npm run ci` before pushing** (`validate` → `coverage` → `verify:build-gate` → `verify:bundle-externals` → `smoke` → `smoke:web:firefox` → Storybook; the Firefox step is local-only and not mirrored in GitHub CI). `npm run validate` is the fast inner-loop check and is **not** a substitute — it runs `test`, not `test:coverage`, so it does zero coverage gating.
+- `npm run format` before committing; **`npm run local:gate` before pushing** (`validate` → `coverage` → `verify:build-gate` → `verify:bundle-externals` → `smoke` → `smoke:web:firefox` → `local:storybook`; the Firefox step is local-only and not mirrored in GitHub CI). The gate is named `local:` rather than `ci` on purpose and has **no alias** (#2146) — `npm run ci` is gone, and a workflow that invokes a `local:*` script, a non-Chromium engine pass, `smoke:web:engine`, or sets `SMOKE_BROWSER` to a non-Chromium value fails `test:scripts` via `scripts/lib/workflow-gate.mjs`. Flag any diff that adds one of those to `.github/workflows/**`, or that reintroduces a `ci`/`ci:*` root script. `npm run validate` is the fast inner-loop check and is **not** a substitute — it runs `test`, not `test:coverage`, so it does zero coverage gating. The canonical CI-vs-local table is in the root README ("Two tiers: GitHub CI and the local gate").
 - **A dependency bump must land in every install that declares it.** v2 is not a workspace — the root and each `clients/*` have their own `node_modules`, and a client's test project compiles `core/` and `test-servers/src` (which resolve from the **root**) alongside the client's own sources. Bumping a shared dependency in one manifest only puts two versions of it in one `tsc` program; for a recursive-generic surface like zod that exhausts the tsc heap (#1896). `verify:dep-lockstep` fails the build on this — it derives its candidates from what each `tsc` program actually resolves (`tsc --listFilesOnly`, keeping packages that reach one program from two installs), so a package reached only through another package's `.d.ts` counts too (#1965) — so a PR bumping a package the shared sources pull in should update the root **and every client that already lists it** — not every client unconditionally, since a package absent from an install can't skew and adding it there would be a spurious dependency.
 - **A test or smoke must not touch real user state.** The web smokes run against a throwaway catalog via the shared `scripts/lib/prod-web-server.mjs` helper, never the developer's `~/.mcp-inspector/mcp.json` (#1977); the cli/tui smokes drive a temp `--catalog`; `pack:verify`'s `--web` child sets its own `MCP_CATALOG_PATH` for the same reason (#2003 — its App deep link persists a server row). Anything that boots the web backend and then *navigates* it needs that isolation, not just the scripts named `smoke:*`. A new smoke spawning its own server, or teardown that removes a work dir without first awaiting `stopChild` (the #1801 race — `child-cleanup.mjs` exports both halves and both are required), should be flagged.
 - **A smoke must assert the thing survives, not that it started.** `smoke:tui` runs the Ink TUI under a pseudoterminal (`scripts/lib/pty.mjs`) and requires it to still be running `SMOKE_TUI_SURVIVE_MS` after its first frame (`scripts/lib/render-smoke.mjs`) — because it previously settled OK on first paint while the TUI was exiting 1 ~40ms later with `Raw mode is not supported`, and won that race on every machine (#2147). Flag anything that collapses the survival wait back into "resolve on the marker", and any new smoke whose only assertion is that a process printed something once. A smoke walks only its own happy path, so the branch that matters — started, then died — belongs in a `scripts/lib/*.test.mjs` driven against a stub (as with `announced-child.mjs` #2000 and `ensure-test-servers.mjs` #2111), not in the smoke.
-- **The headless web smokes are engine-parameterized, not Chromium-only.** `smoke:web:browser` / `smoke:web:app` / `smoke:web:elicit` take their engine from `SMOKE_BROWSER` (chromium — the default — firefox, webkit). **GitHub CI runs Chromium only; Firefox runs in the local pre-push gate** via `smoke:web:firefox` (#2086 — a CI job was trialled and removed for never disagreeing with Chromium across a dozen runs, and moved into `npm run ci` instead). They exist because the MCP Apps sandbox is built out of the primitives that diverge between engines: `srcdoc` CSP inheritance, nested sandboxed iframes, `Permissions-Policy`, cross-frame `postMessage`. Nothing else covers that — `sandbox-csp.test.ts` asserts a policy *string*, and no Storybook story reaches the sandbox at all. Flag a new browser-driven script that launches Playwright itself instead of going through `scripts/lib/headless-browser.mjs`, an unrecognized-engine path that falls back to Chromium rather than failing (it would claim coverage that never ran), or a launch-failure message naming the wrong engine. `pack:verify` is pinned to Chromium on purpose — it is a packaging check.
+- **The headless web smokes are engine-parameterized, not Chromium-only.** `smoke:web:browser` / `smoke:web:app` / `smoke:web:elicit` take their engine from `SMOKE_BROWSER` (chromium — the default — firefox, webkit). **GitHub CI runs Chromium only; Firefox runs in the local pre-push gate** via `smoke:web:firefox` (#2086 — a CI job was trialled and removed for never disagreeing with Chromium across a dozen runs, and moved into `npm run local:gate` instead). They exist because the MCP Apps sandbox is built out of the primitives that diverge between engines: `srcdoc` CSP inheritance, nested sandboxed iframes, `Permissions-Policy`, cross-frame `postMessage`. Nothing else covers that — `sandbox-csp.test.ts` asserts a policy *string*, and no Storybook story reaches the sandbox at all. Flag a new browser-driven script that launches Playwright itself instead of going through `scripts/lib/headless-browser.mjs`, an unrecognized-engine path that falls back to Chromium rather than failing (it would claim coverage that never ran), or a launch-failure message naming the wrong engine. `pack:verify` is pinned to Chromium on purpose — it is a packaging check.
 
 - **Build output is never a gate target.** Lint, format, and typecheck read first-party source only; everything a build writes (`clients/*/build`, `clients/web/dist`, `storybook-static`, `coverage`, `test-servers/build`, `core/**/{build,dist}`, `*.tsbuildinfo`) stays out via each scope's `globalIgnores`, `format` globs, and tsconfig `include`. Gating generated code reports defects in vendored third-party source that nobody can fix, and a rule promotion turns that warning into a `validate` failure (#2043). Flag a PR that adds a build location without ignoring it in the same change, that widens an ignore to silence a finding in first-party code, or that adds a build directory to a tsconfig `include` to make a generated `.d.ts` resolve. Note the coverage guards don't catch this — they assert source is _covered_, not that output is _excluded_.
 - **Lint has no warning tier.** Every `lint` script runs `--max-warnings 0`, so a warning fails `validate` exactly as an error does (#2085) — a `warn`-level `react-hooks/exhaustive-deps` finding otherwise let a stale-closure bug pass the pre-push gate and reach review. Flag a PR that silences a finding to make the gate pass (widening a `globalIgnores`, dropping a rule, or an inline disable with no justification comment); the fix is the defect, not the message. A rule meant to be enforced should be set to `error` rather than left at `warn` and carried by the flag.

.github/workflows/main.yml

@@ -88,6 +88,14 @@ jobs:
         run: npx playwright install --with-deps chromium
 
       - name: Run cross-client smokes
+        # NOTE: this workflow runs GitHub CI's tier only. The LOCAL pre-push
+        # gate is `npm run local:gate`, and it is a strict superset — do not add
+        # it, a `local:*` script, `smoke:web:firefox`/`smoke:web:webkit`,
+        # `smoke:web:engine`, or a non-Chromium `SMOKE_BROWSER` to any workflow.
+        # `npm run test:scripts` fails if you do (scripts/lib/workflow-gate.mjs,
+        # #2146). `npm run smoke` and `smoke:web:chromium` belong here and are
+        # not affected. The canonical CI-vs-local table is in the root README.
+        #
         # End-to-end smokes through the built launcher (--help dispatch + prod
         # CLI/web). Not part of any client's `validate`: it needs the
         # cli/tui/launcher bundles, which `validate` above already built