nil exception thrown when installing plugins immediately after gauge engine installs in test kitchen

[galacticgumshoe]

I am trying to include this cookbook inside my test kitchen, which is installing on top of ubuntu15.04 vagrant image. Eventually this would be part of a bootstrap to a ubuntu openstack server so I can run my system tests automated as part of my CICD process. I have added this to my .kitchen.yml to be able to install the 0.6.0 version of gauge:

run_list:
  - recipe[gauge::default]
attributes:
    gauge:
        version: "0.6.0"
        checksum: "507f234e40b5fd6ae2236828a9e353bc9f729808393564da6a92661b7fc0f313"

My metadata.rb includes this:

depends 'gauge'

My recipe.rb includes this:

include_recipe 'gauge'

gauge_plugin 'python' do
    user 'gauge'
    group 'gauge'
    version '0.1.5'
end

Now, when I converge this on a freshly created test kitchen ('kitchen destroy'/'kitchen create'/'kitchen converge') I receive an exception at the point it wants to install the python plugin:

     * gauge_plugin[python] action install

       ================================================================================
       Error executing action `install` on resource 'gauge_plugin[python]'
       ================================================================================

       NoMethodError
       -------------
       undefined method `[]' for nil:NilClass

       Cookbook Trace:
       ---------------
       /tmp/kitchen/cache/cookbooks/gauge/providers/plugin.rb:91:in `shellout_options'
       /tmp/kitchen/cache/cookbooks/gauge/providers/plugin.rb:100:in `existing_plugin_version'
       /tmp/kitchen/cache/cookbooks/gauge/providers/plugin.rb:4:in `block in class_from_file'
       /tmp/kitchen/cache/cookbooks/compat_resource/files/lib/chef_compat/monkeypatches/chef/runner.rb:41:in `run_action'

What's strange, is that if I simply re-run 'kitchen converge' it installs the python plugin successfully. The nil is set in the 'existing_plugin_version' method when it can't get the HOME environment variable set properly. So it seems there's a dependency between this cookbook and the step previously that if done in the same pass, results in a failure, but done on separate passes, works great.

[ketan]

Are you reloading ohai after creating the gauge user?

user 'gauge' do
  ...
  notifies :reload, 'ohai[reload_passwd]', :immediately
end

ohai 'reload_passwd' do
  action :nothing
  plugin 'etc'
end