[gnoff]

Summary

Make suite-level deploy-test exclusions explicit and searchable across the e2e test suite.

• Add Deploy mode exclusion: comments for exclusions tied to local processes, local files or build artifacts, and deployed-platform differences.
• Add TODO(deploy-test-completion): comments with the observed or likely blocker for exclusions that should be revisited.
• Cover every current skipDeployment setting, hand-written suite guard, and manifest-excluded file without changing test execution.

This creates an actionable inventory for enabling valid suites while preserving exclusions whose current assertions are inherently local.

Verification

• Confirmed every declarative skip, suite guard, and manifest exclusion has a rationale marker and that every TODO includes a reason.
• Confirmed the layer changes comments only.
• Prettier and ESLint passed for all affected test files.

[github-actions]

Failing test suites

Commit: af04f26 | About building and testing Next.js

pnpm test-dev test/e2e/app-dir/instant-navigation-testing-api/instant-navigation-testing-api.test.ts (job)

• instant-navigation-testing-api - without Cache Components > does not enable instant navigation (DD)

Expand output

● instant-navigation-testing-api - without Cache Components › does not enable instant navigation

expect(received).toBe(expected) // Object.is equality

Expected: 0
Received: 1

  1214 |
  1215 |         const loadingShell = page.locator('[data-testid="loading-shell"]')
> 1216 |         expect(await loadingShell.count()).toBe(0)
       |                                            ^
  1217 |         await dynamicContent.waitFor({ state: 'visible' })
  1218 |       })
  1219 |     })

  at toBe (e2e/app-dir/instant-navigation-testing-api/instant-navigation-testing-api.test.ts:1216:44)
  at instant (../packages/next-playwright/dist/index.js:75:20)
  at Object.<anonymous> (e2e/app-dir/instant-navigation-testing-api/instant-navigation-testing-api.test.ts:1211:7)

pnpm test-deploy-experimental-turbo test/e2e/app-dir/sub-shell-generation-middleware/sub-shell-generation-middleware.test.ts (turbopack) (Experimental) (job)

• middleware-static-rewrite > should handle middleware rewrites as well (DD)

Expand output

● middleware-static-rewrite › should handle middleware rewrites as well

expect(received).toMatch(expected)

Expected pattern: /MISS|PRERENDER/
Received string:  "HIT"

  93 |       if (isNextDeploy) {
  94 |         // We produced a partial fallback shell for rewrite/[slug], so we shouldn't see a cache HIT.
> 95 |         expect(getCacheHeader(res)).toMatch(/MISS|PRERENDER/)
     |                                     ^
  96 |       } else {
  97 |         expect(res.headers.get('x-nextjs-cache')).toBe(null)
  98 |       }

  at Object.toMatch (e2e/app-dir/sub-shell-generation-middleware/sub-shell-generation-middleware.test.ts:95:37)