Playwright Pro

Production-grade end-to-end testing with Playwright. Generate tests from user stories, implement the Page Object pattern for maintainability, apply the correct locator strategy for resilient tests, diagnose and fix flaky tests, migrate from Cypress or Selenium, integrate with CI/CD, run visual regression tests, and perform accessibility audits. Enforces the 10 golden rules that eliminate 90% of E2E test failures.

Core Capabilities

• Resilient authoring — getByRole/getByLabel/getByText locator priority, web-first auto-retrying assertions, and the 10 golden rules.
• Page Object Model — centralize locators, expose user-intent methods, generate POM classes from HTML/selectors.
• Test generation — produce specs from user stories with happy-path and error-path coverage.
• Flaky-test diagnosis — trace analysis, headed/debug runs, race-condition and shared-state fixes.
• Migration — Cypress/Selenium → Playwright command mapping and auth-setup patterns.
• CI integration — GitHub Actions, sharding, conditional browser installs, trace/screenshot artifacts.
• Visual regression & accessibility — toHaveScreenshot baselines and Axe WCAG AA gates.

When to Use

• Writing or organizing E2E tests for web apps.
• Fixing flaky tests or diagnosing CI-only failures.
• Migrating a suite from Cypress or Selenium.
• Adding visual regression or WCAG accessibility gates.
• Setting up Playwright CI integration and reporting.

Clarify First

Before generating tests, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

• Task / sub-skill — init, generate, fix-flaky, migrate, or review (routes the entire workflow)
• User story or flow to cover — the happy + error paths the spec must assert (drives test generation)
• Locator surface — whether the app exposes roles/labels/data-testid (sets locator strategy and POM resilience)
• Source framework (if migrating) — Cypress or Selenium (selects the command-mapping table)

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

Sub-Skills

This skill uses compound sub-skill architecture. Each sub-skill in skills/ handles a specific workflow:

Sub-Skill	File	Purpose
Init	skills/init.md	Bootstrap Playwright in a project -- install, configure, create first test
Generate	skills/generate.md	Generate test files from user stories or page descriptions
Fix	skills/fix.md	Diagnose and fix failing or flaky tests using trace analysis
Migrate	skills/migrate.md	Migrate from Cypress or Selenium to Playwright
Review	skills/review.md	Audit test quality, coverage gaps, and flaky test indicators
Report	skills/report.md	Generate execution reports from Playwright JSON output
Coverage	skills/coverage.md	Map tests to user stories, identify coverage gaps
BrowserStack	skills/browserstack.md	BrowserStack cloud integration for cross-browser testing
TestRail	skills/testrail.md	TestRail integration for test case management

Sub-skill flow: Init → Generate → Review → Fix (if needed); Coverage → Generate (fill gaps); Report → BrowserStack / TestRail.

Tools

Tool	Purpose	Command
test_generator.py	Generate Playwright test code from user story descriptions	python scripts/test_generator.py --story "..." --page LoginPage --output tests/
flaky_detector.py	Analyze multiple CI runs to detect flaky test patterns	python scripts/flaky_detector.py --results-dir results/ --runs 10 --threshold 0.05
coverage_mapper.py	Map tests to user flows and identify coverage gaps	python scripts/coverage_mapper.py --tests tests/ --flows flows.json --gaps-only
page_object_generator.py	Generate Page Object classes from HTML or selector lists	python scripts/page_object_generator.py --html page.html --name LoginPage --route /login
test_analyzer.py	Scan test files for anti-patterns and quality issues	python scripts/test_analyzer.py tests/ --severity high
test_report_parser.py	Parse Playwright JSON reports into summaries	python scripts/test_report_parser.py report.json --top-slow 10

References

Load the reference that matches the task — keep this file lean and pull detail on demand:

• references/core-rules-and-patterns.md — the 10 golden rules, locator priority, playwright.config.ts, Page Object Model classes, test generation from user stories, and shared-auth setup. Read when authoring tests or configuring a project.
• references/playwright-patterns.md — locator decision tree, web-first vs non-retrying assertion patterns, custom/worker fixtures, network mocking, anti-pattern quick reference, and CI sharding patterns. Read when choosing locators, mocking APIs, or building fixtures.
• references/diagnosis-migration-and-ci.md — flaky-test causes/fixes and diagnosis commands, Cypress→Playwright migration table, GitHub Actions CI, visual regression, accessibility testing, common pitfalls, best practices, troubleshooting table, and the success-criteria bar. Read when fixing flaky tests, migrating, wiring CI, or auditing a suite.

Scope & Limitations

This skill covers:

• End-to-end test authoring, organization, and maintenance with Playwright
• Page Object Model architecture and locator strategy best practices
• Flaky test diagnosis, CI integration, and trace-based debugging
• Visual regression testing and WCAG accessibility auditing

This skill does NOT cover:

• Unit testing or component testing in isolation (see engineering/testing-strategy for test pyramid guidance)
• API contract testing or load/performance testing (see api-test-suite-builder for API-focused testing)
• Test data management, database seeding, or factory patterns for test fixtures
• Mobile native app testing (Appium, Detox); this skill targets web browsers only

Integration Points

Skill	Integration	Data Flow
ci-cd-pipeline-builder	E2E tests run as a pipeline stage after build and unit tests	Pipeline config triggers playwright test; artifacts (traces, screenshots) upload on failure
api-test-suite-builder	API tests validate backend contracts; Playwright tests validate UI flows end-to-end	API test results confirm endpoint stability before E2E suite runs against the same environment
pr-review-expert	PR reviews check for test coverage on UI changes and flag missing E2E specs	Review checklist references Playwright Pro golden rules; flags waitForTimeout or raw CSS selectors
performance-profiler	Performance budgets complement E2E tests to catch regressions	Profiler identifies slow pages; Playwright tests add networkidle waits or performance assertions for flagged routes
observability-designer	Test failures feed into observability dashboards for flake tracking	CI test results export JSON reports; observability pipelines ingest pass/fail/flake metrics over time
release-manager	E2E suite is a release gate; green suite required before deployment proceeds	Release workflow calls Playwright CI job; blocks release tag creation on any test failure