E2E Testing Guide

How to run the Qwen Code CLI end-to-end — from building the bundle to inspecting raw API traffic. Use when unit tests aren't enough and you need to verify behavior through the full pipeline (model API → tool validation → tool execution).

Which binary to use

• Reproducing bugs: use the globally installed qwen command — this matches what the user ran when they filed the issue.
• Verifying fixes: build first (npm run build && npm run bundle), then run node dist/cli.js — this tests your local changes.

Headless Mode

Run the CLI non-interactively with JSON output (<qwen> = qwen or node dist/cli.js per above):

<qwen> "your prompt here" \
  --approval-mode yolo \
  --output-format json \
  2>/dev/null

The JSON output is a stream of objects. Key types:

• type: "system" — init: tools, mcp_servers, model, permission_mode
• type: "assistant" — model output: content[].type is text, tool_use, or thinking
• type: "user" — tool results: content[].type is tool_result with is_error
• type: "result" — final output with result text and usage stats

Pipe through jq to filter the verbose stream, e.g. extract tool-result errors: ... 2>/dev/null | jq 'select(.type=="user") | .message.content[] | select(.is_error)'

Inspecting Raw API Traffic

When debugging model behavior (wrong tool arguments, schema issues), enable API logging to see the exact request/response payloads:

<qwen> "prompt" \
  --approval-mode yolo \
  --output-format json \
  --openai-logging \
  --openai-logging-dir /tmp/api-logs

Each API call produces a JSON file (can be 80KB+ due to full message history). The bulk is in request.messages (conversation history). Trimmed structure:

{
  "request": {
    "model": "coder-model",
    "messages": [
      { "role": "system|user|assistant", "content": "...", "tool_calls?": [...] }
    ],
    "tools": [
      {
        "type": "function",
        "function": {
          "name": "tool_name",
          "description": "...",
          "parameters": { ... }      // schema sent to the model
        }
      }
    ]
  },
  "response": {
    "choices": [
      {
        "message": {
          "role": "assistant",
          "content": "...",          // text response (may be null)
          "tool_calls": [
            {
              "id": "call_...",
              "function": {
                "name": "tool_name",
                "arguments": "..."   // raw JSON string from the model
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Interactive Mode (tmux)

Use when you need to verify TUI rendering, test keyboard interactions, or see what the user sees. Headless mode is simpler when you only need structured output.

Launching

tmux new-session -d -s test -x 200 -y 50 \
  "cd /tmp/test-dir && <qwen> --approval-mode yolo"
sleep 3  # wait for TUI to initialize

Sending prompts

Split text and Enter with a short delay — sending them together can cause the TUI to swallow the submit:

tmux send-keys -t test "your prompt here"
sleep 0.5
tmux send-keys -t test Enter

Waiting for completion

Poll for the input prompt to reappear instead of blind sleeping:

for i in $(seq 1 60); do
  sleep 2
  tmux capture-pane -t test -p | grep -q "Type your message" && break
done

Capturing output

tmux capture-pane -t test -p -S -100   # -S -100 = 100 lines of scrollback

Limitations

• Key combos: tmux send-keys cannot reliably send all key combinations. C-?, C-Shift-*, and function keys with modifiers are unsupported or unreliable. For these, use the InteractiveSession harness in integration-tests/interactive/ or test manually.
• Visual artifacts: capture-pane captures the final rendered frame, not intermediate states. Flicker, tearing, or brief blank frames cannot be detected this way.

Cleanup

tmux kill-session -t test

MCP Server Testing

For testing MCP tool behavior end-to-end, read references/mcp-testing.md. It covers the setup gotchas (config location, git repo requirement) and includes a reusable zero-dependency test server template in scripts/mcp-test-server.js.

Token Usage Stats

Use scripts/token-stats.py to summarize token usage across recent API logs:

python3 .qwen/skills/e2e-testing/scripts/token-stats.py 20  # last 20 requests

Shows input, cached, and output tokens per request with cache hit rates. Useful for verifying prompt caching behavior or investigating unexpected token counts.

Tips

• Use interactive (tmux) mode when the bug involves permission prompts, slash commands, or keyboard interactions. Headless mode has no TUI — these don't exist there.
• Use interactive (tmux) mode for hang-related issues. Headless mode produces no output when the process stalls, giving you nothing to work with.
• Use --approval-mode default when testing permission rules. yolo bypasses rule evaluation entirely — it can't test whether a rule matches.