Guides

View as Markdown

Use these guides to complete common Shiplight tasks, from checking a change in the browser to maintaining E2E tests in CI. Each guide explains when to use the workflow, what to ask your coding agent, and what results to expect.

Before you begin, follow the Quick Start to install Shiplight in your coding agent.

Verify changes

Use these guides to check your work in a browser during development. These checks do not create or update test files.

• Verify a change — Confirm that a feature or bug fix works as expected.
• Debug page errors — Inspect browser console messages and failed network requests.
• Check mobile layout — Check the layout at different screen sizes and device settings.

Review your application

Review your application before creating browser tests to identify accessibility and testability issues. You can also run focused reviews for security, privacy, compliance, resilience, performance, SEO, and GEO.

• Review your application — Run a design review or choose another area to review.

Review accessibility before creating tests

Clear labels and accessible names help users and make browser tests more reliable. Correcting these issues first gives tests stable ways to identify buttons, fields, and other controls.

Record workflows

Record a workflow to document a feature, share an issue, or provide the source for an E2E test. Recordings can include video, narration, browser actions, console messages, and network requests.

• Record product walkthroughs — Record, review, and organize a workflow, or use it to create a test.
• Receive recordings from non-members — Collect recordings from customers and other collaborators without adding them to your organization.

Create tests

Choose the type and scope of testing that fits the feature, then ask your coding agent to create the tests.

• Decide what to test — Choose an appropriate test type and level of coverage.
• Create tests — Create YAML E2E tests or reusable agent verifications.

Run tests in CI

Run your Shiplight tests automatically for pull requests, merges, or other events in your development workflow.

• CI/CD — Set up a CI workflow, upload results, and configure failure triage.
• Where tests run — Compare local runs, Shiplight-hosted runners, and your own CI runners.
• Shiplight Cloud — Review results, artifacts, trends, and flaky tests across runs.

Maintain tests

Use these guides when your application changes or a test begins to fail.

• How self-healing works — Learn which locator problems Shiplight repairs during a run and which failures require attention.
• Fix a failing test — Reproduce a failure, identify its cause, and update the test or report an application bug.

Configure browsers and test environments

Use these guides when a test requires a signed-in session, an existing browser profile, a specific browser window, or a Chrome extension.

• Test behind a login — Sign in once and reuse the saved session in later tests.
• Use a persistent Chrome profile — Keep login state and extensions between browser sessions.
• Attach to your browser — Use your existing browser tabs, sessions, and extensions.
• Test a Chrome extension — Load and test an unpacked Chrome extension.
• Emulate viewports and devices — Configure screen size, touch input, locale, time zone, and geolocation.

The examples use saucedemo.com, a public demonstration storefront. You can follow them as written or replace the example URL and credentials with your own.