Multi-seller cart shipping and a stall before the cart opened

The verdict Kane CLI returned

The verdict is unambiguous about where the fault sits:

• What Kane CLI observed - no action produced for three consecutive steps while trying to open the cart.
• The verdict - the agent stalled before completing cart verification.
• The classification - automation_bug, agent_misstep, at confidence 0.98.

The two steps after it are recorded as skipped rather than failed, which is the correct distinction. They were never attempted, so the per-shop shipping and the combined totals are untested on this run, not disproven.

The flow under test

The flow is sound in outline. It builds a two-seller cart, then checks the grouping, the per-shop shipping and the totals in three separate steps, which is the right granularity for pricing assertions.

---
mode: testing
url: https://my-testing-repo-main.vercel.app/etsy-clone-app?reset=true
max_steps: 45
tags: [etsy, marketplace, shipping]
---

# Etsi 5.3: Cart with multiple sellers

Catalog objective: add items from two shops and verify shipping is calculated per shop.
Key assertion: two shipping lines with separate totals.

## Add an item from the first shop
Click "Hand-thrown Speckled Mug", click "Add to cart", and verify the cart badge shows one item.

## Add an item from a second shop
Click "Back to search", click "Letterpress Card Set of 6", click "Add to cart", and verify the cart now holds two items.

## Open the cart
Click the "Cart" link in the header and verify the cart shows "2 shops in this order" with groups for "KilnAndClay" and "PaperPressCo".

## Confirm per-shop shipping
Verify the cart shows "Shipping from KilnAndClay" at "$5.50" and "Shipping from PaperPressCo" at "$3.25".

## Confirm the combined totals
Verify the order total panel shows Items "$52.00", Total shipping "$8.75" and a Total of "$60.75".

Step three is where it stops. It combines a header navigation with a two-part assertion about shop grouping, giving the agent a compound target to satisfy in one move. Reproduce it with:

kane-cli testmd run tests/etsy/multi-seller-cart_test.md

How the failure surfaced

The run ended at 119 seconds, the shortest of the failing set, because a stall ends the run as soon as the no-action rule trips rather than continuing through the remaining steps.

---
test: ../multi-seller-cart_test.md
status: failed
started: 2026-09-15T10:10:40.292Z
duration_s: 119
session_id: 0c7b9821-1886-4e00-94c0-1b2a49e79b3a
---

# Etsi 5.3: Cart with multiple sellers - Result

## Add an item from the first shop ✓ passed (30.3s)
md5: bda944dc178c8c025e7883288655a35a
Click "Hand-thrown Speckled Mug", click "Add to cart", and verify the cart badge shows one item.

## Add an item from a second shop ✓ passed (41.3s)
md5: a60a5a9156e6dc4b476f57a46d81d32e
Click "Back to search", click "Letterpress Card Set of 6", click "Add to cart", and verify the cart now holds two items.

## Open the cart ✗ failed (44.2s)
md5: c3f6f2fa97a31b9d2e6acdd841332197
Reason: AP produced no action for 3 consecutive steps - bug verdict: Agent stalled before completing cart verification [automation_bug/agent_misstep, confidence 0.98]
Click the "Cart" link in the header and verify the cart shows "2 shops in this order" with groups for "KilnAndClay" and "PaperPressCo".

## Confirm per-shop shipping ⏭ skipped

## Confirm the combined totals ⏭ skipped

Reading the result file, the useful information is as much in what is missing as in what failed. Two skipped steps mean the shipping arithmetic has no result either way, and treating that as a pass would be the real error.

Fixing the test

The fix is to split step three. Make opening the cart its own step, then assert the shop grouping against the cart page once the browser is there, so the navigation and the verification are not competing in a single instruction.

The same restructuring applies wherever a step combines a navigation with a compound assertion. Running flows interactively is the fastest way to iterate on a step like this, since the browser stays open between attempts, and the evidence format documents how skipped steps are recorded.