Using the default driver in CI no longer works since molecule 25.9.0

[woutdenolf]

Prerequisites

• This was not already reported in the past (duplicate check)
• It does reproduce it with code from main branch (latest unreleased version)
• I include a minimal example for reproducing the bug
• The bug is not trivial, as for those a direct pull-request is preferred
• Running pip check does not report any conflicts
• I was able to reproduce the issue on a different machine
• The issue is not specific to any driver other than 'default' one

Environment

molecule 25.9.0 using python 3.12 
    ansible:2.18.9
    default:25.9.0 from molecule

What happened

I have a molecule.yml run by a gitlab CI pipeline

driver:
  name: default

platforms:
  - name: localhost

provisioner:
  name: ansible
  playbooks:
    converge: converge.yml

I cannot use docker-in-docker so I wanted to run the tests locally (in the CI I'm already in a docker so that's fine). AFAIK the default driver is what I should be using instead of docker or podman or anything else.

Since this merge request #4534 (included in 25.9.0) my molecule tests on gitlab do not run anymore. I used to see this at the start but then the tests ran fine

CRITICAL Failed to find driver docker. Please ensure that the driver is correctly installed.

Now I see this and the tests fail immediately

ERROR    Failed to find driver docker. Please ensure that the driver is correctly installed.

Since I don't intend to use docker I'm confused as to why it fails.

@cidrblock Any idea?

Reproducing example

driver:
  name: default

platforms:
  - name: localhost

provisioner:
  name: ansible
  playbooks:
    converge: converge.yml

- name: Test Molecule Converge
  hosts: all
  gather_facts: false
  tasks:
    - name: Print hello
      debug:
        msg: "Molecule is working!"

[woutdenolf]

Something I forget to mention: my "default" scenario is using the docker driver and the "ci" scenario (which is the one mentioned above) is using the default driver.

Perhaps that could be the reason. I'm running a scenario that does not use docker but the "default" scenario does.

[woutdenolf]

Ok yes I can confirm: when the default scenario uses the docker driver molecule tries to load the docker driver eventhough I'm running another scenario that does not use the docker driver. So #4534 did not create the issue but made it explicit.