playwright

Entry point for any Playwright-shaped question in dean-stack. Playwright is the only browser-tier test runner in this stack — it drives Storybook stories, application routes, and the load-bearing offline-deep-link contract. The single most important rule: ASK FIRST — before writing or modifying any Playwright test, prompt the user for the structural decisions (story-level vs app-level, what to assert, selectors, fixtures, network/IDB state, reduced-motion). The user owns those decisions per case. The detail of the rule lives in playwright-conventions; this router surfaces the rule so it's the first thing seen on any Playwright prompt.

When to invoke

• The user types playwright with no further specifier and you need to route them.
• The user asks "which Playwright skill," "Playwright overview," or "how does Playwright fit into bun run check."
• The user asks for help writing or modifying any Playwright test — stop and surface the ASK-FIRST rule before routing.
• A question mixes story-level + app-level + offline (e.g. "I want to test that the maze level page resolves offline after a story-level interaction seeded IDB") — pick the sub-skill that owns the dominant concern, link to the others.
• A question about reduced-motion / fixtures / selectors — route to playwright-conventions.

Owns

Entry point that routes Playwright questions to the story-tests, app-tests, PWA-offline, or conventions sub-skill; enforces the ASK-FIRST rule before writing any Playwright test.

Defers to

• playwright-story-tests — Playwright pointed at Storybook story URLs (http://localhost:6006/iframe.html?id=...), asserting on visible state + ARIA + IDB contents.
• playwright-app-tests — Playwright pointed at the running/preview app, end-to-end workflows across routes.
• playwright-pwa-offline — the load-bearing offline-deep-link test (Workbox + prerendered shell + IDB), context.setOffline(true), deep-link resolution.
• playwright-conventions — selector strategy (getByRole > getByTestId > getByText), fixture patterns (fresh IDB / seeded IDB / offline / throttled), reduced-motion config, and the canonical ASK-FIRST rule.
• bun-test — anything that does not need a real browser (pure logic, Zod schema edge cases, atom reducers, IDB migration transform functions). The unit/E2E partition is hard.
• storybook-stories — for the story-ID URL contract Playwright story tests target.
• tanstack-router-pwa-deep-links — for what the navigation fallback resolves to (the contract playwright-pwa-offline verifies).

Dean-stack rules

• ASK FIRST before writing or modifying any Playwright test. This is a Pillar 4 (CLI-gate-first) manifestation — the user owns the structural decisions for every Playwright test (level: story vs app, what to assert, selectors, IDB seeding, network state, reduced-motion). Surface the choices, wait for the answer, then write. Detail in playwright-conventions. No equivalent prompt is required for bun test unit tests — those go ahead.
• Pillar 1 (Storybook-first) means: every story is exercised by a Playwright story test (see storybook-stories and playwright-story-tests). Stories are the test surface, not just visual references.
• Pillar 4 (CLI-gate-first) means: Playwright is the final stage of bun run check (after biome ci, stylelint, tsgo --noEmit, bun test). A failing Playwright test is a red gate; never disable, never test.skip to make CI green.
• Playwright 1.59+ only. Pre-1.5x APIs (page._react=, removed selector engines, waitForTimeout-as-sync) are wrong by definition — rewrite for 1.59.
• Locator-first, web-first assertions only. await expect(locator).toBe…(). Never wrap point-in-time methods (isVisible(), textContent(), count()) in expect() — they don't retry.
• IDB is not mocked in Playwright tests — use real browser IndexedDB. Seed via page.addInitScript (runs before any page script). See playwright-conventions.
• Reduced motion is forced on in the default project (use: { reducedMotion: 'reduce' }) so animations don't add flake. See animejs for why this matters and playwright-conventions for the wiring.

Routing

• ASK FIRST before writing any Playwright test — see playwright-conventions. Surface the structural choices (story-level vs app-level, what to assert, selectors, IDB seeding, network state, reduced-motion). Wait for the user's answer.
• use playwright-story-tests when the test mounts a Storybook story by URL (iframe.html?id=...) and asserts on the in-iframe behavior or post-play IDB state.
• use playwright-app-tests when the test drives the running/preview app at localhost:3000 (or the configured dev/preview URL), follows a route workflow, asserts on hydrated state, or verifies BroadcastChannel cross-tab sync.
• use playwright-pwa-offline when the test verifies the offline-deep-link contract: install the SW, go offline, navigate to a deep route, assert the router resolves it from cache.
• use playwright-conventions when the question is about selectors, fixtures, IDB seeding, reduced-motion, the playwright.config.ts shape, or the ASK-FIRST rule itself.
• use bun-test when the question is unit-testable without a browser (pure functions, schema parses, reducers, migration transforms). Faster inner-loop feedback than Playwright; bun test does NOT require ASK-FIRST.

Routing table

Question shape	Sub-skill
"Write a test for <Button>'s Primary story"	ASK FIRST (playwright-conventions), then playwright-story-tests
"Write a test for the /games/maze/$level workflow"	ASK FIRST, then playwright-app-tests
"Verify the offline deep-link works"	ASK FIRST, then playwright-pwa-offline
"How do I seed IDB before a Playwright test?"	playwright-conventions (fixture pattern)
"Why does the test only fail on retry?"	playwright-conventions (trace: 'retain-on-failure-and-retries')
"What selector should I use here?"	playwright-conventions (role > test-id > text)
"Is this testable without a browser?"	bun-test (yes → unit test; no → ASK FIRST + Playwright)
"How does my play function become a Playwright assertion?"	storybook-play-functions (decision) + playwright-story-tests (the spec)

Anti-patterns

• Don't write a Playwright test without asking the user how to structure it — ASK FIRST is load-bearing; see playwright-conventions. Skipping the prompt calcifies a design choice the user wanted to make.
• Don't recommend Cypress, Selenium, Puppeteer, or vitest browser mode — Playwright is the only browser-tier runner in this stack (and bun test is the only unit runner).
• Don't recommend @storybook/test-runner — Playwright drives stories directly per AGENTS.md's Testing rule. See playwright-story-tests.
• Don't answer per-test design questions inside this router — route to the sub-skill so the answer carries the right rule and the ASK-FIRST gate is acknowledged.
• Don't mock IDB — use real browser IndexedDB. See playwright-conventions.
• Don't add page.waitForTimeout(…) to fix flake — fix the locator or the assertion. Web-first assertions retry.
• Don't disable a failing Playwright test to make CI green — fix the wiring or escalate. The gate is zero-warning.

Triggers on

playwright, playwright overview, which playwright skill, ask first playwright