windows_exporter/docs/ci-testing.md

Windows feature tests

The CI Windows job prepares real Windows roles and workloads before running go test -json -count=1 -race -timeout=10m ./.... Collector tests validate the metrics from those workloads. A final exporter smoke check builds and starts the binary, requests /metrics once, and checks for a nonempty HTTP 200 response.

The job runs on Windows Server 2022; Server 2025 runners take much longer to provision the same fixtures. It provisions Containers, Hyper-V, SQL Server Express, IIS, SMTP, MSMQ, NPS, FSRM, SMB, DNS, DHCP, a workgroup failover cluster, printer and storage fixtures, unlocked and locked BitLocker volumes, and an authenticated RDP session.

WINDOWS_EXPORTER_TEST_COLLECTORS lists required collectors. Their tests fail when setup is missing or collection fails instead of skipping. Fixture assertions check known instances, including the active RDP user's session and SQL database. RemoteFX is required when both network and graphics instances are available.

Each Windows job publishes a feature table in its Actions summary and a windows-test-results-<OS> artifact containing feature-summary.md, structured Go test events, readable test output, and setup diagnostics. The table distinguishes required fixtures, unavailable collectors, and empty optional instance groups. This records Windows feature availability rather than Go statement coverage.