feat(skills): add e2e browser and CLI/TUI driving recipes

This commit is contained in:
Jesse Vincent
2026-07-04 15:51:31 -07:00
parent 9640fdbfd9
commit b1e4718205
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# Driving a CLI / TUI (tmux)
Each scenario gets its own named tmux session (cleanup needs a deterministic
name). Fix the size for deterministic capture; prefer the app's plain-text/inline
mode if it has one.
## The four-command recipe
```bash
tmux new-session -d -s <name> -x 200 -y 50 "<cmd> 2>/tmp/<name>-stderr.log"
tmux send-keys -t <name> -l "literal text" # -l = no key-name parsing (paths, slashes)
tmux send-keys -t <name> Enter
tmux capture-pane -t <name> -p # -p = plain text; add -e only for styling
```
- `-x 200 -y 50` fixes the pane size so `capture-pane` output is deterministic
run to run — a resized pane reflows text differently.
- Always `-l` for user-typed strings; without it a literal path like
`/foo/bar` gets parsed as arrow-key escapes instead of typed characters.
- Redirect stderr to a file — panics, log lines, and debug probes land there,
not in the pane, so they won't show up in a `capture-pane` snapshot at all.
Kill any leftover session with the same name before starting a new one, so
reruns don't attach to a stale process:
```bash
tmux kill-session -t <name> 2>/dev/null # idempotent: fine if nothing to kill
```
## Form fill: send-keys patterns
`send-keys` parses keystrokes by name (`Enter`, `BTab`, `C-u`) unless you pass
`-l` for literal text. A typical field-by-field fill mixes both:
```bash
tmux send-keys -t <name> BTab # shift-tab to a prior field
tmux send-keys -t <name> C-u # clear the current line
tmux send-keys -t <name> -l "some/literal/path" # literal — no key parsing
tmux send-keys -t <name> Tab # forward to the next field
tmux send-keys -t <name> Enter
```
`sleep 0.3` between keys is usually enough; bump to 0.51.0s for field
transitions where the UI re-renders.
## Polling capture-pane for state
Poll `capture-pane -p` for a state string and grep the **glyph or word**, not
the color — `-p` drops ANSI styling by default (add `-e` only if you need
styling), and colors are also just harder to grep reliably than a fixed
glyph:
```bash
for i in $(seq 1 30); do
pane=$(tmux capture-pane -t <name> -p)
echo "$pane" | grep -q "state: processing" && break
sleep 1
done
```
TUIs commonly use a distinct glyph per state, e.g. a Braille spinner (`⠋`)
while pending and an X mark (`✗`) on failure, with the glyph simply removed
once reconciled. Grep for the glyph itself, not for a color code.
## Two captures for optimistic UI
Mirror the web sync/async pattern: capture the pane immediately after the
triggering keypress, then again after a reconcile window. Without the
immediate capture you can't tell "rendered then reconciled" from "never
rendered":
```bash
tmux send-keys -t <name> -l "trigger the optimistic action"
tmux send-keys -t <name> Enter
echo "=== synchronous ===" ; tmux capture-pane -t <name> -p | grep -E "pending-glyph"
sleep 6
echo "=== reconciled ===" ; tmux capture-pane -t <name> -p | grep -E "pending-glyph" || echo "[no pending — reconciled]"
```
## Plain-text mode over the alt-screen buffer
If the TUI has a flag that disables its alternate-screen buffer (a debug or
plain-output mode), use it when launching under tmux. `capture-pane` then sees
plain scrollback text instead of raw escape sequences from a full-screen
redraw, which is much easier to grep.
## Non-interactive CLIs don't need tmux
If the surface under test is a one-shot command rather than an interactive
session, skip tmux entirely — run the command and capture its stdout/stderr
directly. The tmux machinery exists for interaction, not for driving a binary
in general. Still run it against a real, freshly built instance, not a stale
one left over from an earlier session.