chore: testing issues (e.g., docs, failures, etc.)

[techfg]

There are a number of issues with the current tests:

1. e2e tests are written with assertions that fail when run in isolation (e.g., they only pass 100% if integration tests have run first)
2. Docs do not clearly and completely specify how tests can/should be run - for example:
   1. npm run tests-init must be run before npm run tests-e2e or when executing individual tests via hurl, etc.
   2. npm run build-all should be run before any tests to ensure the latest code is being tested
   3. npm run start must be run for any test scripts (except `npm run tests-ci``
   4. SSL must be configured first (npm run setup-ssl)
3. hostname/port/url/etc. are hardcoded in several different places making it difficult to maintain and also to run tests against different endpoints

The following should be improved/changed:

1. Docs updated to accurately and completely reflect how to run any of the test scripts
2. Tests should completely successfully when run in isolation
3. Tests should use environment variables to obtain "config" values