Need a way to connect WebExtension tests to the Test Pilot add-on.

[bwinton]

The current solution for communicating with the main add-on from experiments (nsIObserverService) won't work for WebExtensions. There is an API we could use instead, but it's not implemented yet, and worse, isn't going to block the first release of WebExtensions.

But, if we can convince the WebExtensions team that we really, really need this, they will probably bump it up the priority queue. Also, maybe there are other solutions we can use in the meantime, like hitting the Test Pilot server manually…

[bwinton]

It looks like from the WebExtension side, we can use chrome.runtime.sendMessage. I’m not sure what that’ll translate to on the Test Pilot add-on side, though…

[ckprice]

A quick note that product would like to include Tab Center with the go to market release of Test Pilot in April.

/edit thanks @bwinton 😊 Not required for Tab Center, but still important as noted.

[bwinton]

Fortunately, Tab Center isn't a WebExtension, however the No-More-404s extension is… (And future extensions will be, if at all possible. 😉)

[lmorchard]

See also: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1252215

[ckprice]

I'm moving this into the current milestone to make sure we're tracking this. Wayback Machine is blocked by this bug.

[ckprice]

See also: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1252215

Confirmed in #amo that this is something that will have to ride the trains. Once it gets resolved, I'll request an uplift.

[ckprice]

Ref 904, may want to make sure Optimizely is okay.

/edit WRONG BUG, thanks Les.

[lmorchard]

Ref #904, may want to make sure Optimizely is okay.

FWIW, I think this might be more relevant to #715 & possible add-on install whitelisting

[lmorchard]

Starting to try catching myself up on the concerns surrounding this issue.

Wondering if another approach is that we have the webextension throw metrics pings at the Test Pilot HTTP API? From there, we somehow get them into the telemetry pipeline via an alternate pathway. Maybe the Test Pilot server relays those pings on to the Telemetry servers?

Edit: Oh, but those webextension pings would probably be missing all the extra environmental context we send along with Telemetry pings from the other add-on based experiments

The above bugs about WebExtension <-> SDK messaging are planned to land in Firefox 50, so, we have a few months to cover.

Pinging testpilot.firefox.com sounds like a great idea. Our logs are already set up there to get into redshift and we already have a service field for if we got pinged from a specific experiment. Setting up a lightweight end-point for simple data collection is my favorite idea here. :)

Missing environment data is too bad, but we'd still collect the data we'd need to answer our questions, we just wouldn't get as much context. Better than nothing!