feat: relax CAR tests to accept both 200 and 404 for non-existing paths

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -4,6 +4,10 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/),
 and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 
+## [0.8.2] - 2025-08-31
+### Changed
+- Relaxed CAR tests to accept both HTTP 200 and 404 for non-existing paths. The response code now depends on implementation details such as locality and cost of path traversal checks. Implementations that can efficiently detect non-existing paths should return 404 (improved behavior per [ipfs/boxo#458](https://github.com/ipfs/boxo/issues/458)). Implementations focusing on stateless streaming and low latency may return 200 with partial CAR up to the missing link (legacy behavior). [#244](https://github.com/ipfs/gateway-conformance/pull/244)
+
 ## [0.8.1] - 2025-06-17
 ### Changed
 - DAG-CBOR HTML preview pages previously had to be returned without Cache-Control headers. Now they can use Cache-Control headers similar to those used in generated UnixFS directory listings. [#241](https://github.com/ipfs/gateway-conformance/pull/241)

tests/trustless_gateway_car_test.go

@@ -94,26 +94,35 @@ func TestTrustlessCarPathing(t *testing.T) {
 		{
 			Name: "GET default CAR response for non-existing file",
 			Hint: `
-				CAR stream of a non-existing path must return 200 OK and all the blocks necessary
-				to traverse the path up to and including the parent of the first non-existing
-				segment of the path, in order to allow the client to verify that the request
-				path does not exist.
+				The response code depends on implementation details such as the locality and the cost of path traversal checks,
+				and trade-off between latency and correctness.
+				Implementations that are able to efficiently detect requested content path does not exist,
+				should not return CAR response, but a simple 404.
+				Implementations that are focusing on stateless streaming and low latency are free to return
+				partial CAR up to the missing link (blocks necessary to traverse the path up to and including
+				the parent of the first non-existing segment).
 			`,
 			Request: Request().
 				Path("/ipfs/{{cid}}/subdir/i-do-not-exist", subdirTwoSingleBlockFilesFixture.MustGetCidWithCodec(0x70)).
 				Query("format", "car"),
-			Response: Expect().
-				Status(200).
-				Body(
-					IsCar().
-						IgnoreRoots().
-						HasBlocks(
-							subdirTwoSingleBlockFilesFixture.MustGetCid(),
-							subdirTwoSingleBlockFilesFixture.MustGetCid("subdir"),
-						).
-						Exactly().
-						InThatOrder(),
-				),
+			Response: AnyOf(
+				// Stateless streaming implementations: 200 with partial CAR
+				Expect().
+					Status(200).
+					Body(
+						IsCar().
+							IgnoreRoots().
+							HasBlocks(
+								subdirTwoSingleBlockFilesFixture.MustGetCid(),
+								subdirTwoSingleBlockFilesFixture.MustGetCid("subdir"),
+							).
+							Exactly().
+							InThatOrder(),
+					),
+				// Implementations with efficient path checks: 404 Not Found
+				Expect().
+					Status(404),
+			),
 		},
 	}
 

tooling/helpers/car.go

@@ -17,12 +17,9 @@ func StandardCARTestTransforms(t *testing.T, sts test.SugarTests) test.SugarTest
 	return out
 }
 
-func applyStandardCarResponseHeaders(t *testing.T, st test.SugarTest) test.SugarTest {
-	resp, ok := st.Response.(test.ExpectBuilder)
-	if !ok {
-		t.Fatal("can only apply test transformation on an ExpectBuilder")
-	}
-	st.Response = resp.Headers(
+// carResponseHeaders returns the standard headers expected for CAR responses
+func carResponseHeaders() []test.HeaderBuilder {
+	return []test.HeaderBuilder{
 		// TODO: Go always sends Content-Length and it's not possible to explicitly disable the behavior.
 		// For now, we ignore this check. It should be able to be resolved soon: https://github.com/ipfs/boxo/pull/177
 		// test.Header("Content-Length").
@@ -43,7 +40,31 @@ func applyStandardCarResponseHeaders(t *testing.T, st test.SugarTest) test.Sugar
 		test.Header("Etag").
 			Hint("Etag must be present for caching purposes").
 			Not().IsEmpty(),
-	)
+	}
+}
+
+func applyStandardCarResponseHeaders(t *testing.T, st test.SugarTest) test.SugarTest {
+	switch resp := st.Response.(type) {
+	case test.AnyOfExpectBuilder:
+		// Apply headers only to successful CAR responses (status 200)
+		transformedExpects := make([]test.ExpectBuilder, 0, len(resp.Expect_))
+		for _, expect := range resp.Expect_ {
+			// Only apply CAR headers to 200 responses
+			// 404/410 responses don't have CAR content, so no CAR headers needed
+			if expect.StatusCode_ == 200 {
+				expect = expect.Headers(carResponseHeaders()...)
+			}
+			transformedExpects = append(transformedExpects, expect)
+		}
+		st.Response = test.AnyOf(transformedExpects...)
+
+	case test.ExpectBuilder:
+		st.Response = resp.Headers(carResponseHeaders()...)
+
+	default:
+		t.Fatal("can only apply test transformation on an ExpectBuilder or AnyOfExpectBuilder")
+	}
+
 	return st
 }