Glossary term: Constellation

The set of Nodes participating in a particular Test Plan Session.

A Constellation’s Nodes have node role names, and one App instance is assigned to each node role name.

For example, to test whether ActivityPub actors can follow each other, a first actor on a first Node needs to create a Follow activity, and the second actor on the second Node needs to create an Accept activity.

If we wanted to test whether actors on Mastodon can follow Actors on WordPress + plugins, we would assign a Mastodon instance in the first role (let’s call it follower) of the Constellation, and WordPress + plugins in the second role (called leader).

If, on the other hand, we wanted to test whether actors on WordPress + plugins can follow actors on Mastodon, we would keep the test as-is, but assign the WordPress + plugins Node to role follower (previously played by Mastodon), and Mastodon to role leader.

With this approach, we can also test whether actors on Mastodon can follow actors on another Mastodon instance: just assign two different Mastodon instances to the two roles.