Something new is in the works for AliveGR: a proper automated test suite. It is not there yet — but it is coming, and it will change how fast this addon gets developed and debugged. Here is why it matters and what it will cover.

The problem it solves

Greek streaming sites change their markup constantly — sometimes weekly. Historically, finding out meant a user reporting “channel X is down”, followed by the slow loop: launch Kodi, click through menus, reproduce, read the log, guess, patch, re-test by hand. And every hurried fix risked breaking two other things, because nothing verified the rest still worked.

A test suite turns that loop from minutes of clicking into seconds of run and see red or green.

What it will cover

  • Scraper regression tests: saved copies of real site pages as fixtures, so when ERT, MEGA, ANT1 or a VOD portal changes layout, the breakage shows up as a failing test — before release, not after.
  • Resolver and fallback logic: stream selection, persistent preferences, and silent failover exercised without touching the network.
  • Search and transliteration: Greek/Greeklish matching (mega → MEGA, ερτ → ERT) pinned down so refactors cannot silently break it.
  • Playlist and EPG mapping: the IPTV Simple Client bridge and channel mapping verified against known-good outputs.
  • No Kodi required: Kodi’s xbmc modules get mocked, so the whole suite runs on a plain machine or in CI — no GUI, no box, no Android device needed to catch a regression.

How it speeds up development

  • Refactor with confidence. The 3.x modernization touched nearly everything; tests mean the next big cleanup does not rely on luck.
  • CI gates every change. Break a scraper, and the failure is visible on the commit — not a week later in the issue tracker.
  • Faster triage. “Channel X is down” becomes: save the page, add it as a fixture, watch the test fail, fix, watch it pass. Reproducible by anyone, not just on the maintainer’s setup.
  • Pairs well with the AI workflow. The machine already handles the boring 80%; a test suite gives it (and me) an instant verdict on every change.

Status

In the works, landing alongside the 3.0.0 stabilization. If you want to help — fixture pages for broken sources, edge cases, odd markup — open a thread in GitHub Discussions. The more real-world samples, the stronger the net.