test: establish UI/UX release testing for 1.0.0

[giemic8]

Problem

Trufos needs a repeatable UI/UX quality gate before the 1.0.0 release. Existing Vitest and Testing Library coverage does not exercise the packaged Electron application, cross-process user journeys, accessibility, or visual regressions.

Proposed solution

Establish an initial UI/UX release-testing stack:

• add Playwright-based Electron end-to-end infrastructure
• isolate every E2E run with temporary user data
• cover critical smoke journeys for application startup, request creation/sending, persistence, settings, themes, and representative error states
• integrate automated accessibility checks for key renderer views
• add stable visual regression baselines for key light and dark views
• capture traces, screenshots, and videos on failures
• run UI/UX checks in GitHub Actions on Linux
• document exploratory UX scenarios and a manual 1.0.0 release checklist

Prefer accessible selectors (roles, labels, visible names). Add test IDs only where no stable user-facing selector exists.

Initial delivery scope

1. Test harness and scripts
2. 5–8 critical Electron smoke tests
3. Accessibility scans for main views
4. 6–10 visual baselines
5. CI integration and failure artifacts
6. Manual UX/release checklist

Acceptance criteria

• E2E test command launches the Electron app and uses isolated temporary state
• Critical 1.0.0 user journeys have automated smoke coverage
• Key views have automated accessibility checks with no critical or serious violations
• Stable key views have light/dark visual regression coverage
• Failed E2E runs retain useful diagnostics (trace and screenshot; video where practical)
• GitHub Actions runs UI/UX checks in a reproducible Linux environment
• Manual keyboard, zoom, screen-reader, and exploratory UX checks are documented
• Existing unit/component tests continue passing
• yarn test, yarn lint, and yarn prettier-check pass

UX study scenarios

• Import a Postman collection
• Send a request containing an environment variable
• Configure authentication
• Save and reopen a request
• Understand an unreachable-server error

Record completion, time, errors/misclicks, questions, and perceived difficulty.

Alternatives considered

• Component tests only: too little confidence across Electron IPC and persistence boundaries
• Full visual coverage: too costly and brittle for initial 1.0.0 gate
• Manual testing only: not repeatable enough for release regression protection

[giemic8]

Initial UI/UX release-testing stack implemented on branch feature/956-ui-ux-release-testing in commit 8f917e5.

Implemented:

• Playwright Electron harness with isolated temporary user data
• 6 smoke/keyboard flows and 2 Axe accessibility gates
• 6 light/dark visual regression baselines
• retained trace, screenshot, and video diagnostics
• Ubuntu/Xvfb GitHub Actions job
• manual keyboard, platform, accessibility, and 3–5-person exploratory UX checklist
• accessibility fixes for Settings, request URL, GitHub link, and empty-state Create control

Verification:

• yarn test: 438 passed, 1 skipped
• yarn test:e2e: 11 passed
• yarn prettier-check: passed
• ESLint passed for all changed TypeScript files
• repository-wide yarn lint remains blocked by pre-existing errors outside this change

Known serious Axe findings are documented and allowlisted by rule ID so CI rejects new violations without hiding current debt:

• color-contrast
• list
• listitem
• nested-interactive

These findings and the manual study remain release work, so this issue should stay open until they are resolved/recorded.

[giemic8]

Follow-up completed in commit 0da0123.

Resolved all previously known automated accessibility blockers:

• replaced sortable div[role=button] wrappers with valid list items
• removed invalid nested list-item structure
• removed nested-interactive Axe findings
• updated light-theme accent and HTTP-method colors to WCAG AA contrast
• removed Axe violation allowlist entirely

Final automated verification:

• yarn test:e2e: 11 passed
• Axe: zero critical or serious violations in main view and Settings
• yarn test: 438 passed, 1 skipped
• yarn prettier-check: passed
• ESLint: passed for all changed TypeScript files
• working tree: clean

Implementation and automated release gate are complete. Remaining 3–5-person exploratory UX session is an external human release-validation activity; executable protocol and recording fields are in docs/testing/ui-ux-release-checklist.md.

[giemic8]

Expanded release-critical Playwright coverage in commit ba640a9.

New deterministic local-server E2E cases:

• send request and verify 200 OK, response body tab, and headers
• configure Bearer authentication and verify transmitted Authorization header
• resolve collection variable before transmission
• show failure feedback for unreachable server and re-enable Send
• save request URL, discard draft changes, and reload persisted collection state

Added full test catalog at docs/testing/playwright-test-catalog.md and accessible labels for Save/Discard controls.

Final verification:

• Playwright: 16 passed
• Vitest: 438 passed, 1 skipped
• Prettier: passed
• ESLint: passed for changed TypeScript files
• working tree: clean