Docker Engine and Compose v2 (docker compose), your user in the docker group (or use sudo for Docker).
Tests resolve the fleet config from the repository root (status-app/), not only from test/e2e. Run pytest from test/e2e as usual so paths in driver/aut.py stay correct.

1. Start the local fleet

From the Status app repository root (parent of test/):

docker compose -f ./docker-compose.waku.yml up --build --remove-orphans

Leave this running. The compose file uses host networking on Linux (network_mode: host).

2. Environment variables for pytest

The AUT is started with local Waku flags only if E2E_LOCAL_WAKU_FLEET is set to a truthy value (1, true, or yes).

Variable	Role
`E2E_LOCAL_WAKU_FLEET`	Must be enabled (`1` / `true` / `yes`) to pass `--enable-fleet-selection`, `--waku-fleet`, and `--waku-fleets-config` to the binary.
`STATUS_FLEET`	Optional. Defaults to `status-app.test`. Must match the top-level key in assets/local-waku-fleets-config.json.
`STATUS_FLEET_CONFIG_FILE`	Set automatically by the test driver to the absolute path of `assets/local-waku-fleets-config.json` when local fleet mode is on (same information as CLI; status-go may use either).

Example before running tests:

export E2E_LOCAL_WAKU_FLEET=1
# Optional if you use the default fleet name from the JSON:
# export STATUS_FLEET=status-app.test

Without E2E_LOCAL_WAKU_FLEET, the app uses the normal built-in fleets (e.g. status.prod) and does not load local-waku-fleets-config.json.

3. Logs

With local fleet enabled, pytest logs the full argv via AUT startaut argv (...). Check aut.log next to your AUT_PATH binary and application logs under the per-run data directory if something fails (e.g. unknown fleet means the saved account fleet does not match the keys in the JSON).

4. CI

The Linux e2e Jenkins job sets E2E_LOCAL_WAKU_FLEET, STATUS_FLEET, and STATUS_FLEET_CONFIG_FILE in ci/Jenkinsfile.tests-e2e.

Which build to use

you can use your local dev build but sometimes tests hag there. To use it, just place a path to the executable to AUT_PATH in your _local.py config, for example AUT_PATH = "/Users/anastasiya/status-desktop/bin/nim_status_client"
normally, please use CI build. Grab recent one from Jenkins job https://ci.status.im/job/status-desktop/job/nightly/

2.1 Linux and Windows could be taken from nightly job
Note: on windows you have to escape slashes and use the bin from StatusApp folder: for example `"C:\Users\anast\AppData\Local\StatusApp\bin\Status.exe"

2.2 Mac requires entitlements for Squish which we don't add by default, so please go here https://ci.status.im/job/status-desktop/job/systems/job/macos/ and select architecture you need (arm or intel), click Build with parameters and select Squish entitlements. Select a branch if u like (master is default)

Pytest marks used

You can run tests by mark, just use it like this in command line:

python3 -m pytest -m critical

or directly in pycharm terminal:

pytest -m critical

You can obtain the list of all marks we have by running this pytest --markers

critical, mark used to select the most important checks we do for PRs in desktop repository (the same for our repo PRs)
skip, used to just skip tests for various reasons, normally with a ticket linked
timeout(timeout=180, method="thread"), to catch excessively long test durations like deadlocked or hanging tests. This is done by pytest-timeout plugin