# E2E characterization (golden-master) net

Playwright tests that lock the app's five core flows — **feed** (scroll + filter), **channel**
(open → back), **player** (open/close), **settings** (dirty-save + guard), and **page switching** —
so the Platform refactor can _prove_ it changed nothing. They assert current, correct behavior;
they deliberately do **not** encode the known Platform bugs (those get their own specs when the
sprints that fix them land).

## Run

```sh
siftlode e2e            # against the baked localdev :8080 stack (authoritative)
siftlode e2e-ui         # same, Playwright UI mode
siftlode e2e-seed       # (re)seed the test account only, no tests
```

The localdev stack must be up (`siftlode dev`). `global.setup.ts` reseeds the account and logs in
once, sharing the session via `e2e/.auth/state.json` (git-ignored).

**A dropped localhost connect** — on a Windows host, a burst of test traffic can drop a loopback
connect now and then (every port, any program). The browser resends it and only waits (a loader
outlives an `expect` timeout); Node does not, so a request from the test side fails with
`connect ETIMEDOUT`. Those requests go through `retryConnect` (`e2e/retryConnect.ts`), which tries
that one error again and passes every other failure straight on. Don't run two e2e suites on the
same machine at once.

**Browsers** — every flow runs in three projects: `chromium` (Desktop Chrome), `webkit` (Desktop
Safari) and `ipad` (iPad gen 7 landscape: 1080×810, touch, mobile). Install the engines once per
machine with `npx playwright install chromium webkit`; run one project with
`npx playwright test --project=ipad`. WebKit catches what every iOS browser inherits from the engine
(JS, CSS/layout, event order). It does **not** reproduce iPad media refusals: Playwright's WebKit
decodes through the host OS (Media Foundation on Windows, GStreamer on Linux), and measured on
2026-09-14 it played an mp3-in-mp4 and an AV1 mp4 that a real iPad refuses. Check a media format
on a real iPad against the dev stack over the LAN (`http://<desktop LAN IP>:8080`, e.g. a
login-free `/watch/<token>` share link).

**Target** — `PW_BASE_URL` (default `http://127.0.0.1:8080`):

- **`:8080`** (baked SPA) is authoritative and same-origin. After a **frontend change you must
  `siftlode dev` (rebuild)** for its baked SPA to carry the latest test hooks.
- **`:5173`** (Vite dev) serves source live — the fast refactor loop; it proxies `/api` to `:8080`,
  so the stack must still be up. All five flows are proxy-safe:

  ```sh
  PW_BASE_URL=http://localhost:5173 siftlode e2e
  ```

**Accessibility** — `a11y.spec.ts` runs axe-core's WCAG 2.x A + AA rules (`@axe-core/playwright`)
over every rail page, every admin page and the player, in `chromium` only (the rules read the DOM,
which the engines build alike). It does not judge colour contrast: axe files text on a gradient —
every glass surface — as "incomplete", not as a pass or a hit.

## Account & fixture

Tests run as a dedicated **admin** account `e2e@siftlode.local` (never a real account;
admin so the suite can reach the admin-only pages / render branches, matching the real primary
user), reset to a deterministic baseline every run by
[`scripts/e2e_seed.py`](../../scripts/e2e_seed.py) (run
in-container so it reuses the app's models + argon2 hasher): the top-3 organic channels subscribed,
one in-progress + one watched + one saved video, prefs pinned to `language: en`. Credentials come
from `E2E_EMAIL` (default `e2e@siftlode.local`) and `E2E_PASSWORD` — **required, no default**: run
the suite through the ops wrapper, which exports it from the secret store. Override the container name with
`E2E_API_CONTAINER`; skip the in-container seed with `E2E_SKIP_SEED=1`.

## Selectors

The app has no `data-testid`s of its own and all copy is i18n (en/hu), so the specs key on a thin
`data-testid` layer (added with this sprint) plus the locale pinned to `en`. Stable ARIA hooks that
already existed are used directly (`role="dialog"` on the player, `aria-current="page"` on the
active nav row, `aria-pressed` on the feed toggles).

## Typecheck

`npx tsc -p e2e/tsconfig.json --noEmit` (the specs are outside the app's `src` tsconfig).