refactor: migrate tests from cypress to playwright

[robert-hebel-sb]

Description

Replaces the Cypress end-to-end suite with an equivalent Playwright suite written entirely in TypeScript.

• Specs: all 112 Cypress specs from test/e2e-cypress/e2e/{a11y,bugs,features,security} are ported 1:1 to test/e2e-playwright/**/*.spec.ts (634 tests, same titles and assertions). Existing it.skip tests remain skipped.
• Config and support:
  • playwright.config.ts starts the webpack dev-e2e server (:3230) and the mock API (:3204), and uses Chromium only.
  • The OAuth2 test server (:3231) is started in global setup.
  • A strict test/e2e-playwright/tsconfig.json covers specs and config.
  • A shared test fixture provides a small swaggerUi helper.
  • Uncaught page exceptions are logged via console.error and fail the test during fixture teardown. This matches the old Cypress behavior: its uncaught:exception handler returned true, and only returning false suppresses the failure.
• Moved assets: static/ moved to test/e2e-playwright/static/ and webpack/dev-e2e.js points at it. The OAuth2 server and the multiple-examples helper are ported to TypeScript.
• Scripts: cy:* replaced by e2e, e2e:ui, e2e:headed, e2e:report, e2e:server, e2e:mock-api, e2e:typecheck. npm test now runs e2e.
• CI: the build job also runs npm run e2e:typecheck (strict tsc over the Playwright tests, since Playwright does not type-check). The e2e-tests job installs Chromium, caches ~/.cache/ms-playwright, runs 4 shards (--shard=N/4), and uploads the HTML report and traces on failure.
• Dependencies:
  • Added: @playwright/test 1.63.0 and @types/cors 2.8.19. @types/cors is needed to type the ported OAuth2 server under strict. @axe-core/playwright is not needed because the Cypress a11y specs never used axe.
  • Removed: cypress and start-server-and-test.
• Docs: README, CLAUDE.md, docs/development/scripts.md and the .claude guidance docs updated.

Notable translation decisions:

• cy.wait(ms) was replaced by web-first assertions (or expect.poll) throughout, except bugs/5138, which keeps a fixed 3s wait because it checks that the title stays stable over time.
• Cypress .type() special sequences ({selectall}, {{}, {enter}, {leftarrow}) were translated explicitly.
• cy.intercept / cy.stub became page.route / exposeFunction + addInitScript.
• Two oas31 specs had two tests with identical titles (Playwright rejects duplicates). The second was renamed to describe

Tests that were passing vacuously in Cypress (the check ran before the page rendered):

• info: the fixture info-openAPI30.yaml declared openapi: 3.1.0, so the 3.1-only summary was rendered. The fixture now declares 3.0.0.
• license: "should render nothing if both URL & SPDX exists" never matched the app. selectLicenseUrl deliberately prer`. The test is renamed to "should prefer the URL over the SPDX identifier if both exist" and asserts that.

Motivation and Context

How Has This Been Tested?

• npm run e2e (full Playwright suite): all green.
• Flake check in CI mode (CI=true --repeat-each=3 --workers=2 --retries=0): 1887 passed, 15 skipped, 0 failures.
• After merging main: full suite again, 631 passed, 3 skipped, 0 failed.
• npm run lint (0 errors, no warnings in the new files; the remaining 36 warnings pre-exist), npm run test:unit, npm run build, npm run test:artifact.
• The workflow YAML parses, but actionlint was not available locally, so the CI job has not been run on GitHub yet.

Known gaps, carried over rather than fixed:

• Several Cypress negative assertions (not.exist right after an action) were already weak and were ported as is.
• Some specs only check element presence rather than content (for example request-body-upload-file never uploads a file

Screenshots (if appropriate):

N/A

Checklist

My PR contains...

• No code changes (src/ is unmodified: changes to documentation, CI, metadata, etc.)
• Dependency changes (any modification to dependencies in package.json)
• Bug fixes (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• Improvements (misc. changes to existing features)
• Features (non-breaking change which adds functionality)

My changes...

• are breaking changes to a public API (config options, System API, major UI change, etc).
• are breaking changes to a private API (Redux, component props, utility functions, etc.).
• are breaking changes to a developer API (npm script behavior changes, new dev system dependencies, etc).
• are not breaking changes.

Documentation

• My changes do not require a change to the project documentation.
• My changes require a change to the project documentation.
• If yes to above: I have updated the documentation accordingly.

Automated tests

• My changes can not or do not need to be tested.
• My changes can and should be tested by unit and/or integration tests.
• If yes to above: I have added tests to cover my changes.
• If yes to above: I have taken care to cover edge cases in my tests.
• All new and existing tests passed.

[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

Uncaught browser exceptions no longer fail tests, allowing application crashes to pass unnoticed.

1 open finding

• Playwright weberror logging no longer fails tests on application crashes · New

What changed in this PR

Migrates the end-to-end test infrastructure from Cypress to TypeScript-based Playwright.

Changes:

• Ports Cypress specifications, fixtures, static assets, and OAuth support.
• Adds Playwright configuration, sharded CI execution, and updated npm scripts.
• Updates documentation and removes Cypress infrastructure.

File	Description
playwright.config.ts	Configures Playwright, servers, retries, and Chromium.
test/​e2e-playwright/​**	Adds ported specifications, fixtures, support utilities, and assets.
test/​e2e-cypress/​**	Removes the former Cypress suite.
.github/​workflows/​nodejs.yml	Adds sharded Playwright CI execution and artifacts.
webpack/​dev-e2e.js	Serves Playwright test assets.
package.json /​ package-lock.json	Replaces Cypress dependencies and scripts.
Documentation and metadata files	Updates testing instructions and path references.

🧠 Review effort: Balanced

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[Copilot]

🟡 Changes recommended

The strict Playwright TypeScript project is not type-checked in CI, and documented page-error behavior contradicts its implementation.

1 open finding

• Align page exception handling with documented behavior · New

1 resolved since last review

• Playwright weberror logging no longer fails tests on application crashes

🧠 Review effort: Balanced

---

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[Copilot]

🔵 Needs a closer look

The broad 634-test runner migration and CI orchestration changes require final human confirmation of behavioral parity.

1 open finding

• Align page exception handling with documented behavior

🧠 Review effort: Balanced

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[aslushnikov]

@robert-hebel-sb @cka121 @glowcloud if you folks are interested in a tests dashboard for Playwright, I'd be happy to provide you one for free as part of the "Flakiness.io Open Source" program. Other big projects like WordPress or Nuxt are already part of it.

Let me know if you're interested!