playwright

Playwright against an iOS simulator or Android emulator

The device page (/device/{udid}?app={bundleId}) shows the simulator or emulator with the app's native UI mirrored as real DOM: data-testid from accessibility identifiers (React Native's testID, Android's resource-id), ARIA roles from element types, text from labels. Playwright drives it like any web page — same API, same runner, same HTML report. No Appium, no WebDriverAgent.

Run the examples

# terminal 1: DeviceDeck, with the app registered so it can be installed and launched
devicedeck --app path/to/TestHive.app --app path/to/app-release.apk

# terminal 2
npm install
npx playwright install chromium

# iOS — a booted simulator
DEVICEDECK_UDID=<simulator udid> npx playwright test tests/agent-written/testhive-ios.spec.ts

# Android — a booted emulator
DEVICEDECK_ANDROID_SERIAL=emulator-5554 npx playwright test tests/agent-written/testhive-android.spec.ts

Each test launches the app fresh (its data is cleared), so every test starts logged out and independent.

Start here: tests an agent wrote

tests/agent-written/ holds five tests per platform — wrong password, login, search, category filter, cart and checkout — written by Claude with Playwright MCP. It was told only "test my app" and the login; it booted the device, explored the app, and wrote the spec from the code Playwright MCP emitted. Both files passed twice, as written, on DeviceDeck 1.0.1.

To do the same for your app, give your agent Playwright MCP and DeviceDeck's plugin, and ask: "Write Playwright tests that cover the main journeys of my app."

What is different from a web test

Very little, which is the point. The idioms that matter:

• Launch fresh in beforeEach: request.post('/api/devices/{udid}/app/launch', { data: { app } }) returns once the app is taking input. Add ?reset=no to keep the app's data instead.
• Type with fill(). It returns once the device holds the value, so there is nothing to wait for before submitting. Avoid keyboard.type: key by key it raises Android's soft keyboard, and the next tap can be spent closing it.
• Actions wait for the device. click() and fill() return once the device has acted and the screen has settled — no waitForTimeout. Assert with expect, which retries: an app that updates on a timer (a debounced search) can change a moment later.
• One worker. A device serves one driver at a time; playwright.config.ts sets workers: 1.
• Gestures DOM events cannot express are available from scripts: page.evaluate(() => devicedeck.swipe(0.5, 0.8, 0.5, 0.2)), devicedeck.gesture('home').

Android notes

Run emulators with hw.keyboard = yes (Android Studio's default): with a hardware keyboard the soft keyboard stays closed, so the layout doesn't reshape mid-flow.

What else is in this folder

• tests/app/ — earlier generated specs for the same app.
• tests/recorded/ — a spec recorded in DeviceDeck's console.
• tests/platform/ — DeviceDeck's own checks of the device page (mirror fixtures, scrolling, overlays, frame rate). Not examples of how to write an app test.
• demo/ — the script behind the README's demo recording.