Misc improvements for AI agent contributions

[swissspidy]

Contributor-experience changes coming out of the discussion in wp-cli/wp-cli#6161
about what it costs an AI coding agent — or anyone iterating in a terminal — to
work in a WP-CLI repository. Four independent commits; happy to drop any of them.

AGENTS.md: point contributors at targeted test runs

AGENTS.md currently says validating a change means running composer test, and
calls doing anything else not recommended. Agents follow that literally. In
wp-cli/wp-cli it means the full Behat suite — 430 scenarios, 205 of which install
WordPress from scratch — needing jq, a prepared MySQL database and network
access to WordPress.org. Tens of minutes and a wall of output to check a two-line
change.

Replaced with a table mapping what you changed to what to run, keeping the full
suite as the pre-pull-request check for cross-cutting work. Also documents
composer behat-rerun and --stop-on-failure, the NO_COLOR and
WP_CLI_TEST_QUIET output switches, and the fact that a green composer test is
not a green CI.

Run the Gherkin linting through composer lint-gherkin

The lint-gherkin job downloaded the ruleset from this repository over
raw.githubusercontent and invoked npx itself. That left contributors with no
config file in their own repository to run the check against, so the only way to
find a Gherkin violation was to push and wait.

wp-cli-tests now owns the ruleset, the pinned linter version and the invocation,
so the job calls that instead. One place to change the rules, and the check is
reproducible locally.

Depends on wp-cli/wp-cli-tests#356 — composer lint-gherkin does not exist
until that ships. The other three commits stand alone.

Let Dependabot update the npm tooling

wp-cli-tests pins the Gherkin linter in a package.json that exists for no other
purpose. Without an npm entry here that pin never moves. It is a no-op in every
repository that has no package.json, which is all of them bar one.

Give the Copilot environment a database

copilot-setup-steps.yml installed PHP and Composer but no database, so the
Behat runner silently fell back to SQLite and the agent's test runs were never
the ones CI would do. Mirrors the MySQL setup from reusable-functional.yml,
gated on the package actually having a behat.yml.

Notes for review

• lint-gherkin gets heavier. It previously needed only Node; it now also
  does a PHP setup and composer install, because the runner script lives in
  vendor/bin. That is the price of a single source of truth. The lighter
  alternative is pointing the existing curl at wp-cli-tests' .gherkin-lintrc
  — one source for the rules, but the version pin and the invocation stay
  duplicated.
• .gherkin-lintrc in this repository becomes unused once this lands. Left
  in place rather than deleted, in case something outside these two repositories
  still fetches that URL.
• The AGENTS.md commit mentions composer lint-gherkin and the two output
  switches, so it reads slightly ahead of itself until
  Make the test runners cheaper to run repeatedly and quieter to read back wp-cli-tests#356 merges.

Refs wp-cli/wp-cli#6161

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Chores
  • Added automated daily dependency update checks with pull-request limits, labeling, and a cooldown period.
  • Improved automated test setup for MySQL and WordPress environments.
  • Updated code-quality workflows to use the project’s Composer-based Gherkin linting.
• Documentation
  • Expanded contributor guidance for targeted checks, Behat troubleshooting, full test requirements, quieter output, and Gherkin linting.

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Review details

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: a7c94867-3daf-424a-9f0b-28db980bb20b

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between b919f9f and c346db5.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• .github/workflows/copilot-setup-steps.yml

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The PR configures daily root npm updates, expands Copilot test setup for MySQL and Behat, changes Gherkin linting to Composer-based execution, and updates contributor guidance for targeted and full test runs.

Changes

CI Testing Updates

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Behat test environment setup .github/workflows/copilot-setup-steps.yml	The workflow defines MySQL and WordPress test database variables. When behat.yml exists, it starts MySQL, removes conflicting binaries, and prepares the test database.
Composer-based Gherkin linting .github/workflows/reusable-code-quality.yml, AGENTS.md	The Gherkin lint job prepares PHP and Composer dependencies and runs composer lint-gherkin. The command is added to the Composer command reference.
Targeted test guidance AGENTS.md	Contributor guidance now documents targeted checks, Behat reruns, full-suite prerequisites, failure handling, quiet output, and additional CI checks.

Dependency Automation

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Root npm update configuration .github/dependabot.yml	Dependabot checks root npm dependencies daily with a ten-pull-request limit, distribution labeling, and a seven-day cooldown.

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes

Merge Risk:🔵 Low · up to b919f

The Copilot environment may use a different MySQL release than CI, which can make agent test results diverge from CI behavior; the PR is otherwise mergeable with explicit owner awareness or follow-up to pin the intended version.

Possibly related PRs

• wp-cli/.github#274: Both PRs modify the Gherkin lint job in .github/workflows/reusable-code-quality.yml.
• wp-cli/.github#275: Both PRs replace direct gherkin-lint usage with Composer-based linting.

Suggested labels:scope:testing

Suggested reviewers:schlessera

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 inconclusive)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Title check	❓ Inconclusive	The title relates to AI-agent workflow changes, but “Misc improvements” is too vague to identify the primary changes.	Replace “Misc improvements” with a specific summary, such as “Improve AI-agent test setup and Gherkin linting workflows”.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch fix/ai-ergonomics

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Actionable comments posted: 1

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Inline comments:
In @.github/workflows/copilot-setup-steps.yml:
- Around line 66-81: Update the “Setup MySQL Server” step to explicitly set the
action’s mysql-version input to the intended CI version, such as mysql-8.0,
instead of relying on the empty/default value. Preserve the existing
credentials, auto-start setting, conditions, and subsequent database preparation
flow.

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Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

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• Create a new PR with the fixes

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ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: e031c43b-a18d-4178-9821-1c109bc42631

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 222a7e7 and b919f9f.

📒 Files selected for processing (4)

• .github/dependabot.yml
• .github/workflows/copilot-setup-steps.yml
• .github/workflows/reusable-code-quality.yml
• AGENTS.md

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