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Live Coding Automation Challenge
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Live Coding Automation Challenge

MediumPython

Problem

Describe how you would implement and validate an automation solution during a live coding exercise for a QA task.

Implement validate_automation_run(expected_steps, events) to validate an ordered automation event stream. Each event contains a step name and one event type: start, fail, or pass. A step may be retried after fail, but only one attempt may be active at a time. Return { "valid": bool, "error_index": int }, where error_index is the first invalid event index, or -1 for a valid complete run.

Examples: ['login', 'checkout'] with start, pass, start, pass is valid. A pass without a matching start, an out-of-order step, or an incomplete final step is invalid.

Constraints

  • 1 <= len(expected_steps) <= 10^5
  • 0 <= len(events) <= 2 * 10^5
  • Step names are unique strings
  • Each event contains step and event keys
  • Event types are intended to be start, fail, or pass

Function Signature

def validate_automation_run(expected_steps, events):
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