QA: Background Agents — Mastra

Prerequisites

• Demo is deployed and accessible
• Agent backend is healthy (check /api/health)

Test Steps

1. Basic Functionality

• Navigate to the background-agents demo page
• Verify the chat interface loads in a centered full-height layout
• Verify the chat input placeholder "Type a message" is visible
• Verify no background-task activity card is present on first paint

2. Feature-Specific Checks

Suggestions

• Verify "Research AI agent frameworks" suggestion button is visible
• Verify "Investigate renewable energy trends" suggestion button is visible

Background task → activity card

• Click "Research AI agent frameworks" (or type "Kick off deep research on the current landscape of AI agent frameworks")
• Verify a background-task activity card renders inline in the transcript (data-testid="background-task-activity")
• Verify the card shows the "Deep research" title and the topic text
• Verify the card status reads "Working…" with an animated spinner (data-testid="background-task-status")
• Verify NO orphan run_deep_research tool pill appears — the backgrounded tool call is suppressed and surfaces ONLY as the activity card
• Verify the assistant sends a short message noting the task is running in the background

3. Out-of-band completion (expected behavior, not a bug)

• Note that the card stays in the "Working…" state within the turn. Mastra delivers background-task completion OUT OF BAND (on a later turn), so the dispatching run's stream carries only the started lifecycle plus a placeholder result. Do NOT expect the card to animate to "Completed" within the same turn.

4. Error Handling

• Send an empty message (should be handled gracefully)
• Verify no console errors during normal usage

Expected Results

• Chat loads within 3 seconds
• The activity card appears within a few seconds of dispatching research
• The card reads "Working…" (running state) — completion is out of band
• No orphan tool pill, no UI errors or broken layouts