test-runner-watch-mode-kill-signal is flaky

[joyeecheung]

Test

test-runner-watch-mode-kill-signal

Platform

Linux x64, macOS x64, Linux ARM64

Console output

not ok 3256 parallel/test-runner-watch-mode-kill-signal
  ---
  duration_ms: 120099.61500
  severity: fail
  exitcode: -15
  stack: |-
    timeout
  ...

Build links

Reason	parallel/test-runner-watch-mode-kill-signal
Type	JS_TEST_FAILURE
Failed PR	9 (https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/60175/, https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/60168/, https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/60199/, https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/60062/, https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/59983/, https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/60217/, https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/60256/, https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/60205/, https://github.com/nodejs/node/pull/60244/)
Appeared	vm-gy321, vm-gnhs2, vm-se52j, test-digitalocean-alpine321_container-x64-2, test-azure-ubuntu2204_container-arm64-6, vm-lkfp1, vm-x37tr, vm-yx2lw, vm-i57a3, vm-5tpep
First CI	https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-pull-request/69674/
Last CI	https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-pull-request/69765/

Additional information

From https://github.com/nodejs/reliability/blob/main/reports/2025-10-17.md

[joyeecheung]

cc @nodejs/test_runner

[joyeecheung]

This test has been flaking for various different reasons from June: nodejs/reliability#1247
It appeared in 62 daily reliability reports: https://github.com/nodejs/reliability/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20%22test-runner-watch-mode-kill-signal%22&page=3

[joyeecheung]

Unless someone is invested in fixing this test soon-ish, I'd suggest we split this test into multiple files first, and mark the one that still flakes as flaky.

[joyeecheung]

Actually it seems the test is unrelated to test runners, despite the name starts with test-runner, it's just a test for --watch-kill-signal and the actual code being tested is not using test runner.

@dario-piotrowicz