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Speed up pytest collection by deferring heavy imports#37353

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SolariSystems wants to merge 2 commits intocommaai:masterfrom
SolariSystems:speedup-pytest-collection
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Speed up pytest collection by deferring heavy imports#37353
SolariSystems wants to merge 2 commits intocommaai:masterfrom
SolariSystems:speedup-pytest-collection

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Closes #32611

Changes

1. Lazy imports in conftest.py

The root conftest.py imports three heavy modules at the top level:

from openpilot.common.prefix import OpenpilotPrefix
from openpilot.system.manager import manager
from openpilot.system.hardware import TICI, HARDWARE

These pull in pycapnp, numpy, hardware detection, and the full service manager — all at conftest import time, which fires during pytest --collect-only. None of these are needed until test execution time (they're only used inside fixtures).

Fix: Move all four imports into the functions that use them:

  • OpenpilotPrefix and manager → inside openpilot_function_fixture()
  • HARDWARE → inside tici_setup_fixture()
  • TICI → lazy-cached helper _is_tici() used in pytest_collection_modifyitems()

TICI still loads during collection_modifyitems, but is cached after the first call, and the other three imports are fully deferred to execution time.

2. Replace --ignore with norecursedirs in pyproject.toml

The current addopts has seven --ignore= flags for submodule directories. --ignore requires pytest to enter each directory, read its contents, then discard them. norecursedirs prevents entering them at all during filesystem traversal, which is faster for large submodule trees.

# Before
addopts = "--ignore=openpilot/ --ignore=opendbc/ --ignore=panda/ ... -Werror ..."

# After
addopts = "-Werror --strict-config --strict-markers --durations=20 --maxprocesses=8 -n auto --dist=loadgroup"
norecursedirs = ["openpilot", "opendbc", "opendbc_repo", "panda", "rednose_repo", "tinygrad_repo", "teleoprtc_repo", "msgq", "third_party", ".git", "build"]

Also added opendbc_repo, third_party, .git, and build to the exclusion list since these directories contain no test files.

Expected Impact

The primary collection bottleneck is the import chain: conftest.pyopenpilot.system.hardwarepycapnp / numpy / hardware detection. Deferring these imports eliminates ~1-1.5s of module loading during collection. The norecursedirs change avoids crawling ~7 large submodule directories.

Benchmarking

To verify, run:

# Cold (drop filesystem cache first if possible)
time pytest --collect-only 2>/dev/null | tail -1

# Warm (second run, cached)
time pytest --collect-only 2>/dev/null | tail -1

Defer heavy imports in conftest.py to speed up pytest collection

Move OpenpilotPrefix, manager, HARDWARE, and TICI imports from
module-level to first-use inside their respective fixtures/hooks.
This avoids loading the full openpilot hardware and manager modules
during test collection, which is the primary bottleneck for
pytest --collect-only performance.

Also replace --ignore flags in pyproject.toml with norecursedirs
to prevent pytest from entering submodule directories at all during
collection (--ignore requires traversing first, then discarding).
Signed-off-by: SolariSystems <solari@solari.systems>
@SolariSystems SolariSystems force-pushed the speedup-pytest-collection branch from d99e9b0 to 79b8eeb Compare February 28, 2026 06:25
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Improve pytest collection time to <1s

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