E2E Testing Patterns
End-to-end testing with Playwright 1.59+, visual regression, accessibility, and AI agent workflows.
Quick Reference
| Category | Rules | Impact | When to Use |
|---|
| emulate Backends | rules/emulate-e2e.md | HIGH | FIRST CHOICE — deterministic API backends for E2E |
| Playwright Core | rules/e2e-playwright.md | HIGH | Semantic locators, auto-wait, flaky detection |
| Page Objects | rules/e2e-page-objects.md | HIGH | Encapsulate page interactions, visual regression |
| AI Agents | rules/e2e-ai-agents.md | HIGH | Planner/Generator/Healer, init-agents |
| A11y Playwright | rules/a11y-playwright.md | MEDIUM | Full-page axe-core scanning with WCAG 2.2 AA |
| A11y CI/CD | rules/a11y-testing.md | MEDIUM | CI gates, jest-axe unit tests, PR blocking |
| End-to-End Types | rules/validation-end-to-end.md | HIGH | tRPC, Prisma, Pydantic type safety |
Total: 7 rules, 2 references, 3 checklists, 1 example, 1 script
Upstream coverage (do not restate)
Playwright, axe-core and jest-axe document themselves. This skill carries only the
OrchestKit delta (references/ork-delta.md) plus the house subsets in rules/. Fetch
the vendor page for anything below instead of expecting it here.
WCAG 2.2 success criteria and the manual keyboard / screen-reader / contrast / zoom
passes are NOT routed away: checklists/a11y-testing-checklist.md still carries them
in full, with https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/ as the normative reference.
emulate Backends
For E2E tests that interact with external APIs (GitHub, Vercel, Google), use emulate as the backend instead of hitting real APIs. This eliminates flakiness from rate limits, network issues, and non-deterministic data.
| Approach | Result |
|---|
| emulate backends (FIRST CHOICE) | Deterministic, fast, CI-friendly |
| Real APIs | Flaky, rate-limited, slow |
| MSW/Nock intercepts | No state machines, manual response management |
Key features: seed config for reproducible data, per-worker port isolation for parallel Playwright, full state machine transitions.
See rules/emulate-e2e.md for patterns, CI configuration, and per-worker isolation fixtures.
Playwright Quick Start
import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';
test('user can complete checkout', async ({ page }) => {
await page.goto('/products');
await page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Add to cart' }).click();
await page.getByRole('link', { name: 'Checkout' }).click();
await page.getByLabel('Email').fill('test@example.com');
await page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Submit' }).click();
await expect(page.getByRole('heading', { name: 'Order confirmed' })).toBeVisible();
});
Locator Priority: getByRole() > getByLabel() > getByPlaceholder() > getByTestId()
Playwright Core
Semantic locator patterns and best practices for resilient tests.
| Rule | File | Key Pattern |
|---|
| Playwright E2E | rules/e2e-playwright.md | Semantic locators, auto-wait, new 1.58+ features |
Anti-patterns (FORBIDDEN):
- Hardcoded waits:
await page.waitForTimeout(2000)
- CSS selectors for interactions:
await page.click('.submit-btn')
- XPath locators
Removed in 1.58/1.59 — do NOT use:
_react=ComponentName[prop=value] and _vue=... component selector engines — removed in 1.58
:light selector suffix — removed
launch({ devtools: true }) option — removed; use args: ['--auto-open-devtools-for-tabs']
Page Objects
Encapsulate page interactions into reusable classes.
| Rule | File | Key Pattern |
|---|
| Page Object Model | rules/e2e-page-objects.md | Locators in constructor, action methods, assertion methods |
const checkout = new CheckoutPage(page);
await checkout.fillEmail('test@example.com');
await checkout.submit();
await checkout.expectConfirmation();
AI Agents
Playwright 1.59+ AI agent framework for test planning, generation, and self-healing. Includes a token-efficient CLI mode designed for coding agents — minimal output, structured responses, reduced context overhead.
| Rule | File | Key Pattern |
|---|
| AI Agents | rules/e2e-ai-agents.md | Planner, Generator, Healer workflow |
npx playwright init-agents --loop=claude
Token-efficient CLI mode (1.58+): Playwright ships a SKILL-focused CLI mode that produces compact, agent-friendly output — use this when running Playwright from AI agents to minimize token consumption.
Workflow: Planner (explores app, creates specs) -> Generator (reads spec, tests live app) -> Healer (fixes failures, updates selectors).
New in Playwright 1.59 (Apr 2026) — relevant for AI agents:
page.screencast({ start, stop, showActions }) — unified video + real-time JPEG frame streaming. Lets a Healer agent read frames mid-run for visual assertion without writing video files.
browser.bind() / npx playwright-cli attach — attach to a running browser from an MCP client mid-test; useful for Healer to inspect a hung or failing CI run.
locator.normalize() — rewrites a brittle locator to best-practice equivalents. Pair with Healer to auto-upgrade getByTestId → getByRole where possible.
Accessibility (Playwright)
Full-page accessibility validation with axe-core in E2E tests.
| Rule | File | Key Pattern |
|---|
| Playwright + axe | rules/a11y-playwright.md | WCAG 2.2 AA, interactive state testing |
import AxeBuilder from '@axe-core/playwright';
test('page meets WCAG 2.2 AA', async ({ page }) => {
await page.goto('/');
const results = await new AxeBuilder({ page })
.withTags(['wcag2a', 'wcag2aa', 'wcag22aa'])
.analyze();
expect(results.violations).toEqual([]);
});
Accessibility (CI/CD)
CI pipeline integration and jest-axe unit-level component testing.
| Rule | File | Key Pattern |
|---|
| CI Gates + jest-axe | rules/a11y-testing.md | PR blocking, component state testing |
End-to-End Types
Type safety across API layers to eliminate runtime type errors.
| Rule | File | Key Pattern |
|---|
| Type Safety | rules/validation-end-to-end.md | tRPC, Zod, Pydantic, schema rejection tests |
Visual Regression
Native Playwright screenshot comparison without external services.
await expect(page).toHaveScreenshot('checkout-page.png', {
maxDiffPixels: 100,
mask: [page.locator('.dynamic-content')],
});
House rules that the vendor docs do not state (CI-only baselines, single snapshot
project, mask over threshold): references/ork-delta.md. Option reference and the
baseline workflow itself: see the Upstream coverage table above.
Key Decisions
| Decision | Recommendation |
|---|
| E2E framework | Playwright 1.59+ with semantic locators |
| Locator strategy | getByRole > getByLabel > getByTestId |
| Browser | Chromium (Chrome for Testing in 1.59+) |
| Page pattern | Page Object Model for complex pages |
| Visual regression | Playwright native toHaveScreenshot() |
| A11y testing | axe-core (E2E) + jest-axe (unit) |
| CI retries | 2-3 in CI, 0 locally |
| Flaky detection | failOnFlakyTests: true in CI |
| AI agents | Planner/Generator/Healer via init-agents |
| Type safety | tRPC for end-to-end, Zod for runtime validation |
References
| Resource | Description |
|---|
references/ork-delta.md | House rules the vendor docs do not state: jest-axe over vitest-axe, CLI-only agent init, CI-only baselines, single snapshot project, mask over threshold |
references/playwright-setup.md | Installation, MCP server, seed tests, agent initialization |
Checklists
| Checklist | Description |
|---|
checklists/e2e-checklist.md | Locator strategy, page objects, CI/CD, visual regression |
checklists/e2e-testing-checklist.md | Comprehensive: planning, implementation, SSE, responsive, maintenance |
checklists/a11y-testing-checklist.md | Automated + manual: keyboard, screen reader, color contrast, WCAG |
Examples
| Example | Description |
|---|
examples/orchestkit-e2e-tests.md | OrchestKit analysis flow: page objects, SSE progress, error handling |
Generic Playwright samples (user flows, auth fixtures, API mocking, multi-tab, file
upload, axe scans) now come from the vendor pages in the Upstream coverage table.
Scripts
| Script | Description |
|---|
scripts/create-page-object.md | Generate Playwright page object with auto-detected patterns |
Related Skills
testing-unit - Unit testing patterns with mocking, fixtures, and data factories
testing-integration - API boundary and contract testing
cover - Generates the E2E tier when the suite does not exist yet
verify - Grades an existing suite and returns a merge verdict
expect - Diff-aware browser verification via agent-browser
emulate-seed - Seed configuration authoring for emulate providers
portless (upstream) - Stable HTTPS baseURL for local E2E tests (https://myapp.localhost instead of port guessing; HTTPS-on-443 default since portless 0.10)