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
2 changed files with 188 additions and 0 deletions

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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.

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# Driving a Web UI (Browser)
Use a Chrome/CDP browser tool. After authenticated navigation, drive the page
through `eval` against the app's own JS entry points rather than synthesizing
clicks where possible — it's more robust to layout change than clicking
coordinates or brittle selectors.
## Authenticated navigation
If the app's login flow is a token-bearing redirect (e.g. a URL like
`/auth?token=<TOKEN>&next=<path>`), navigate straight to that URL and then wait
for an element you expect to exist once the session is live:
```text
navigate http://<host>/auth?token=<TOKEN>&next=<path>
await_element [data-some-marker]
```
Use the literal token value, not the path to the file that contains it. Passing
the path instead of the token itself typically renders as an "invalid token"
page rather than an obvious stack trace — if you see that error, check which
one you passed.
## Optimistic-vs-settled assertions
For any "did the optimistic UI update happen before the request resolved?"
scenario, fire the action but *don't await it*, take a synchronous DOM
snapshot (the pending placeholder is there *now*), then await and snapshot
again:
```javascript
(async () => {
const before = {
pendingCount: document.querySelectorAll(".optimistic-pending").length,
};
// Fire — capture the promise but don't await yet.
const promise = window.App.doAction(id, payload).catch(e => e);
// Synchronous: the pending placeholder is in the DOM RIGHT NOW.
const sync = {
pendingCount: document.querySelectorAll(".optimistic-pending").length,
pendingText: document.querySelector(".optimistic-pending")?.textContent,
};
await promise;
await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 200)); // let the DOM settle
const after = {
pendingCount: document.querySelectorAll(".optimistic-pending").length,
failedCount: document.querySelectorAll(".optimistic-failed").length,
reason: document.querySelector(".optimistic-failed-reason")?.textContent,
};
return JSON.stringify({ before, sync, after }, null, 2);
})()
```
Without the no-await capture you can't tell "rendered then reconciled" from
"never rendered" — both look identical in the post-await snapshot alone.
## Return a plain string from eval
Join your findings into a string (e.g. `JSON.stringify(..., null, 2)` or
`\n`-joined lines) before returning from `eval`. Some bridges stringify a
returned object as `[object Object]`, silently discarding everything you
wanted to inspect.
## Probing internal state when the DOM is ambiguous
Inspect the app's singleton via `window.<App>?.state` (or whatever it exposes)
when the DOM alone can't tell you what happened:
```javascript
JSON.stringify({
state: window.App?.state, // idle | processing | …
hydrated: window.App?.hydrated,
pendingType: typeof window.App?.pending,
windowKeys: Object.keys(window).filter(k => k.toLowerCase().includes("app")),
})
```
The `windowKeys` scan is useful when you don't already know the singleton's
name — grep the result for something plausible. If a hydration/connection
flag is `false` when you expect `true`, or a registry that should be an object
comes back `"undefined"`, that's usually the real bug, not a DOM timing issue.
## Prefer labels over selectors
When a step needs a concrete locator, prefer a label the user actually sees
(button text, aria-label, visible heading) over a brittle structural selector
like `#nav > li:nth-child(3)`. A layout shuffle breaks the selector; it rarely
changes the label.
## When console capture is unreliable
If the browser tool's console-log capture is flaky or stubbed, route debug
output through `eval` instead: push entries to a `window.__DEBUG_LOG` array
from the page, then read it back with a follow-up `eval` call. This sidesteps
the capture path entirely and gives you an ordinary string to inspect.