selectors

Selector Strategy

Critical

• Selector priority order is mandatory: getByRole > getByLabel > getByPlaceholder > getByText > getByTestId. Move to the next option only when the previous one is not feasible.
• NEVER use XPath (page.locator('//...') or 'xpath=...').
• NEVER use CSS class or ID selectors as the primary strategy (page.locator('.btn-primary'), page.locator('#submit')). Acceptable only as an absolute last resort after ruling out every semantic option.
• Exploration with playwright-cli is mandatory before writing any selectors. No guessing from wireframes, docs, or screenshots. Read the playwright-cli skill for the commands.
• If the app cannot be reached or auth fails, stop and notify the human — never ship placeholder locators with guessed names.
• String values inside getByText(...) come from enums/{area}/* (e.g. Messages.LOGIN_ERROR). Never hardcode repeated UI strings. See the enums skill.
• Every page object covering forms or CRUD must include feedback / validation message selectors — success, error, field validation, toast, loading, empty state as applicable. A page object without them is incomplete.
• Locators are get accessors returning Locator — this is a style/readability convention in the scaffold. Playwright's Locator is lazy, so get and a readonly field set in the constructor behave identically at runtime.

Instructions

Phase 1: Open and authenticate

Never generate selectors from assumptions or documentation alone. Before writing any locators or page objects, explore the live application by running playwright-cli in the terminal (read the playwright-cli skill). Do not use IDE browser MCP, Cursor browser tools, or any substitute — orchestrator rule: No Substitute UI Exploration. If playwright-cli cannot run, stop and notify the human.

playwright-cli open <APP_URL>
playwright-cli snapshot

If the page fails to load or requires authentication: