🌱 Skip E2E tests for documentation and YAML-only changes

[Gautam3994]

Issue: Proposal: Speed up E2E tests by skipping suites when changes are irrelevant - #5004

Problem

Currently, all E2E tests run even if a PR only modifies documentation (*.md, *.markdown) or YAML (*.yml, *.yaml) files. This results in unnecessary CI resource usage and slower feedback cycles.

Goal

• Skip all E2E tests if the PR contains only documentation or YAML changes (case-insensitive).
• Run alpha E2E suites (like alphagenerate and alphaupdate) only if changes are within pkg/cli/alpha/.
• Keep the decision logic atomic and per-suite, so each E2E suite can decide locally and consistently whether to run — both in CI and local development.

Proposed Solution

• Introduce a Go helper utility in test/e2e/utils that:
  • Retrieves the changed files list either from CI environment variables or by running git diff.
  • Detects if changes are only docs or YAML files.
  • Checks if changes match any required path prefixes for a given suite.
• Modify each E2E suite to call this helper in its BeforeSuite hook and Skip itself when appropriate.

This improves CI efficiency by avoiding needless E2E runs, speeding up feedback without sacrificing test coverage.

[linux-foundation-easycla]

The committers listed above are authorized under a signed CLA.

• ✅ login: Gautam3994 / name: Gautam Kumar (345cc41)

[k8s-ci-robot]

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[k8s-ci-robot]

Hi @Gautam3994. Thanks for your PR.

I'm waiting for a kubernetes-sigs member to verify that this patch is reasonable to test. If it is, they should reply with /ok-to-test on its own line. Until that is done, I will not automatically test new commits in this PR, but the usual testing commands by org members will still work. Regular contributors should join the org to skip this step.

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[camilamacedo86]

/ok-to-test

[camilamacedo86]

Thank you a lot for the nice work 🥇

We have an error here to solve see the job: https://prow.k8s.io/view/gs/kubernetes-ci-logs/pr-logs/pull/kubernetes-sigs_kubebuilder/5005/pull-kubebuilder-test/1955569142404747264

make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/prow/go/src/sigs.k8s.io/kubebuilder/docs/book/src/getting-started/testdata/project'
./test/check-license.sh
Checking for license header...
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found
./test/check-license.sh: line 29: file: command not found

[Gautam3994]

@camilamacedo86 I noticed the missing file command in the build environment. I realize the guidelines recommend one issue per PR — should I open a separate PR for this fix, or is it okay to include it here since it’s a small change?

[Gautam3994]

Hi @camilamacedo86 just checking in — would you prefer I open a separate PR for the missing file command fix, or should I keep it in this one?

[Gautam3994]

@camilamacedo86 just checking in please let me know if anything else is required from my end

[camilamacedo86]

Hi @Gautam3994

I had no time to review this one properly yet
But you are right we should have another PR to fix the issue with the shell
If you want to do that will be amazing 🚀

we need ensure that this changes will work fine and we will not skip when we should test
Give me a little time to review this one as soon as possible. Thank you a lot !!!

[vitorfloriano]

@Gautam3994 Sometimes we change workflows (which are .yaml files located in the .github dir) that have config that could possibly break the app and we would want to validate that in a full E2E test. Would this logic exclude those files?