CI support for Slang testing

[kaizhangNV]

Currently we are missing the CI coverage for testing the tools. We have tests that developers can run on local, but we don't have image comparison infrastructure on CI.

File this issue to track the effort of deploying the automation tests on CI.

[jstone-lucasfilm]

Thanks for highlighting this, @kaizhangNV, and I'll slightly modify the title of this GitHub Issue to clarify that it's CI support for Slang testing.

[kwokcb]

Now that the Slang generator is exposed in Python and Javascript with this check-in, at least we can run validation tests using generateShader.py.

I think we could download a release of Slang from github for one of the workflows and run slangc as the validation cmd (which can be passed as an argument to generateShader.py). e.g. GLSL and MSL are testing shader compile this way.

[kwokcb]

Noticed that the Slang releases don't have RHI included this would make easier for CI as opposed to having to build it.

[krishnamanchikalapudi]

Hi @kaizhangNV ,
I would like to work on this issue by updating the GitHub Actions workflow to download a prebuilt release of the slangc compiler and pass it as the validation command to generateShader.py, mirroring the pattern used for GLSL and MSL validation. Could you please confirm if this proposed approach is approved so I can start implementing it?

[krishnamanchikalapudi]

GA success# https://github.com/AcademySoftwareFoundation/MaterialX/actions/runs/27726462855

[krishnamanchikalapudi]

Hi @kaizhangNV @jstone-lucasfilm, pls review the PR-2982 addressing issues/2668. CI is green across the board — all GitHub Action checks have passed in run #27726462855. Ready for merge pending your approval, which I need to wrap up my CodePath capstone task.

regards
Krishna