Test infra rework: YAML-driven unit-test collection + integration tier

[JohnYanxinLiu]

What features did you add and/or bugs did you address?

• Which GitHub issue does this address?

  No dedicated issue. Third PR in the real-robot deployment series, extracted from the test-harness rework tangled in Johnliu/optitrack emulation #367 so the generic parts land on their own and Johnliu/optitrack emulation #367 shrinks to OptiTrack-only content when it rebases.

  Stacked on l4t deployment fixes: make the Jetson profile build + boot on real hardware #371 (johnliu/l4t-deployment-fix) — base this PR on johnliu/l4t-deployment-fix so the diff shows only the 3 test-infra commits. After l4t deployment fixes: make the Jetson profile build + boot on real hardware #371 merges to develop, retarget to develop (the l4t commits drop out cleanly).

• Additional description if not fully described in the GitHub issue

  Two concerns:

  1. Unit-test discovery: proxy files → YAML-driven direct collection

  • develop discovered co-located unit tests via hand-written proxy files under tests/robot/ (each ~20 lines of importlib + parents[N] path walks, and a second source of truth to keep in sync).
  • This replaces them with direct collection driven by the existing tests/colcon_unit_test_packages.yaml: conftest.py resolves each listed package to its test/ dir and injects the non-linter test_*.py files into collection under --import-mode=importlib, auto-marking each unit by path. ament lint files (test_copyright.py, etc.) are skipped — they run under colcon test.
  • Deleted the two proxy files. Adding a package's unit tests is now "list it in the YAML."

  2. Integration test tier

  • New tests/integration/ + integration mark + a shared robot_autonomy_stack fixture (robot-desktop container, no sim/GPU), slotted into _MODULE_ORDER between build_packages and the sim tiers.

• Please add videos and images to demonstrate the feature.

  N/A — test-harness plumbing.

How did you implement it?

• tests/pytest.ini: --import-mode=importlib (kills duplicate-basename collisions and the spec_from_file_location loader) + integration mark.
• tests/conftest.py: repo_path/unit_test_files (glob robot/ros_ws/src/**/<pkg>/test, minus lint files), inject in pytest_configure (skipped when an explicit path is passed, so pytest tests/system/foo.py still narrows), auto-unit-mark in pytest_itemcollected, __integration__ ordering, and the robot_autonomy_stack fixture.
• Explicit files (not dirs) are injected — pytest doesn't apply ignore rules to files recursed from an explicitly-passed dir, so passing the exact non-linter files is the only deterministic way to keep ament lint tests out.

How do you run and use it?

# Unit tests (hermetic, no Docker) — collected directly from package test/ dirs:
airstack test -m unit -v

# Integration tier (robot-desktop container, no sim/GPU):
airstack test -m integration -v

Adding a package's unit tests: list it under robot.packages in tests/colcon_unit_test_packages.yaml — no proxy file.

Testing with PyTest

• This is test infrastructure. Validated locally: the co-located natnet_ros2 + lidar_point_cloud_filter unit tests collect directly (no proxy files) and pass — 14/14, matching the pre-change count; ament lint files excluded; collection order is unit → build_docker/build_packages → integration → sim tiers; an explicit path still narrows (no injection).
• Command: airstack test -m unit -v (and -m integration -v skips cleanly when robot-desktop isn't built).
• Expected: unit count unchanged vs develop; no import errors under --import-mode=importlib.

Documentation

• Was mkdocs.yml updated? (y/n) n — no new page. Updated the add-unit-tests and run-system-tests skills, AGENTS.md, and docs/development/intermediate/testing/{index,unit_testing}.md to describe the YAML-driven mechanism (no proxies), plus a new tests/integration/README.md.

Versioning

• Bumped .env VERSION → 0.19.0-alpha.8 (above l4t deployment fixes: make the Jetson profile build + boot on real hardware #371's alpha.7) with matching CHANGELOG [Unreleased] entries.

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