DEV Community: Kailash P.

Automating web form with Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol) and MySQL MCP

Kailash P. — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 04:31:24 +0000

In the world of test automation, combining browser automation with database interactions opens up powerful possibilities. Imagine fetching user data from a database and using it to populate a web form automatically — no manual scripting required.

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With Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol) and MySQL MCP, you can achieve this seamlessly. In this blog, I’ll walk you through how to integrate these tools to fetch data from a MySQL database and use it to fill the checkout in the Web Form. By the end, you’ll have a working automation setup that’s both efficient and scalable.

Web Automation Testing Using Playwright: End-to-end, API, accessibility, and visual testing using Playwright

Kailash P. — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 03:45:42 +0000

Introduction
Automation testing has become an essential practice in software development, ensuring applications are robust, reliable, and ready for deployment. Among the myriad of automation tools available, Playwright, developed by Microsoft, stands out as a game-changer in web automation testing. Whether you’re an aspiring test engineer, a seasoned developer, or a product owner looking to enhance software quality, mastering Playwright is a skill worth acquiring.

This blog introduces insights from the book Web Automation Testing Using Playwright: End-to-end, API, Accessibility, and Visual Testing Using Playwright, offering a roadmap to leveraging Playwright for effective test automation.

India
Click here to Get the Book

Other Country
Click here to get the book on Playwright

Why Playwright?
Playwright is a modern automation framework designed to be fast, reliable, and flexible. Unlike traditional automation tools, Playwright supports multiple browsers (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit) and provides capabilities like network interception, cross-browser testing, and headless execution.

Key advantages of Playwright include:

Multi-Browser Support: Write tests once and run them on multiple browsers.

Powerful Selectors: Work efficiently with complex UI elements, including shadow DOM and iframes.

Auto-Waiting Mechanism: Reduces flaky tests by ensuring elements are ready before interacting.

Rich Debugging Features: Codegen, Inspector, Trace Viewer, and UI Mode for better debugging and troubleshooting.

Seamless Integration: Supports modern test automation frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, and AI-driven automation.

What You’ll Learn
The book provides a step-by-step guide to mastering Playwright, covering everything from foundational concepts to advanced techniques. Here are some of the key areas explored:

End-to-End Automation with Playwright
Writing functional and regression tests.
Handling UI elements like alerts, tabs, drag-and-drop interactions, and modals.
Advanced Web Element Handling
Working with complex UI elements such as shadow DOM, nested iframes, and dynamic content.

Implementing robust selector strategies for reliable test execution.

Debugging and Test Analysis

Using Playwright Codegen to auto-generate test scripts.
Analyzing test failures with Inspector and Trace Viewer.
Running tests in UI Mode to visually inspect execution flow.

API Testing and HTTP Interception
Automating API validation using Playwright’s built-in API testing capabilities.
Mocking network responses and handling API request interception.
Cucumber/BDD and Page Object Model (POM) Implementation
Structuring test automation frameworks using BDD principles.
Enhancing maintainability with Page Object Model (POM).
Accessibility and Visual Testing
Conducting accessibility audits to ensure compliance with standards like WCAG.
Implementing visual regression testing to detect UI discrepancies.
CI/CD Pipeline Integration
Running Playwright tests in Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and other CI/CD tools.
Performing parallel execution to speed up test cycles.
AI-Driven Test Automation
Leveraging AI tools for test case generation, debugging, and maintenance.
Integrating generative AI models like ChatGPT for intelligent test automation.

Who Should Read This Book?
This book is designed for:

Test Automation Engineers looking to master Playwright.
Web Developers interested in validating application functionality.
QA Professionals aiming to enhance their automation skills.
Product Owners who want to ensure software quality through automated testing.

Conclusion
Playwright is revolutionizing the world of web automation testing, offering speed, reliability, and versatility. The book Web Automation Testing Using Playwright serves as a comprehensive guide for testers and developers eager to enhance their automation skills. Whether you are just beginning or an experienced professional, this book provides the tools, techniques, and insights needed to elevate your web testing capabilities.

Are you ready to take your automation testing to the next level? Dive into Playwright and start automating with confidence!

Modern Test Automation with AI(LLM) and Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Kailash P. — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 03:38:35 +0000

In the fast-paced world of software development, delivering high-quality applications at scale is a constant challenge. Traditional test automation, while powerful, often struggles with dynamic user interfaces, flaky tests, and time-consuming script maintenance. Generative AI (GenAI) and Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol) — a game-changing duo that’s redefining modern test automation.

Modern Test Automation with AI(LLM) and Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol)

This blog explores how these technologies work together to streamline QA processes, boost efficiency, and empower testers to focus on strategic tasks, also potential challenges of using LLM and Playwright MCP.

Create Page Object model(POM) with LLM(GitHub Copilot) and Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Kailash P. — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 03:36:38 +0000

Test automation is a critical part of modern software development, but maintaining test scripts for dynamic web applications can be a challenge. The Page Object Model (POM) is a proven design pattern that makes test suites maintainable and scalable. When paired with GitHub Copilot, an AI-powered coding assistant, and Playwright’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), you can supercharge your automation workflow with intelligent code generation and seamless tool integration.

Create Page Object model(POM) with LLM(GitHub Copilot) and Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol)

In this blog, we’ll walk through how to create a POM-based test automation framework using Playwright , leverage GitHub Copilot to write and optimize code, and integrate Playwright MCP to enable AI-driven browser interactions. Whether you’re a QA engineer or a developer, this guide will help you build a robust, AI-enhanced testing solution.

Integrating Cursor and LLM for BDD Testing With Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Kailash P. — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 03:35:33 +0000

Imagine writing automated tests that feel like describing a story — where your natural language ideas transform into robust, executable code in seconds.

It’s reality, thanks to the convergence of AI-powered tools like Cursor, Large Language Models (LLMs), and the Playwright Model Context Protocol (MCP). These tools are revolutionizing Behavior Driven Development (BDD), making test automation faster, smarter, and more collaborative.

Integrating Cursor and LLM for BDD Testing With Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol)

In this blog, I’ll share a practical example of automating a login test, along with real-world insights.

Bythe end of blog , you’ll see how without doing any setup for Playwright and BDD /Cucumber how we can execute the feature file.

API Testing with LLM(Claude) and Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Kailash P. — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 03:34:41 +0000

In today’s fast-evolving software landscape, delivering high-quality applications at scale is a constant challenge. Traditional API testing often involves writing complex scripts, maintaining boilerplate code, and dealing with brittle test suites. Enter Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol) combined with Large Language Models (LLMs) — a revolutionary duo that simplifies API automation by enabling testers to write tests in plain English, reducing coding overhead, and enhancing test efficiency.

API Testing with LLM(Claude) and Playwright MCP (Model Context Protocol)

In this blog, we’ll explore how Playwright MCP, powered by LLMs like Claude, transforms API automation, with practical examples drawn from the ExecuteAutomation Playwright MCP repository.

2025 New Book Launched !Web Automation Testing with Playwright

Kailash P. — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 02:42:23 +0000

Whether you’re starting your journey or already an experienced QA professional, this resource is tailored to take your automation skills to the next level.

I’m excited to share “Web Automation Testing Using Playwright: End-to-end, API, accessibility, and visual testing using Playwright.”

This book serves as a complete guide to mastering Playwright and includes:

✅ End-to-end testing
✅ API testing
✅ Accessibility testing
✅ Visual testing

🛒 Get your copy now:
📍 India: https://tinyurl.com/2s3vn4wz
🌍 International: https://tinyurl.com/mr2tnwkr

I’d love to hear your thoughts! If you find it helpful, feel free to share it with your network. Let’s advance the field of automation testing together!

AI-Driven Testing with Applitools Autonomous: What You Need to Know

Kailash P. — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 07:29:25 +0000

The demand for high quality software in the fast paced tech environment has never been greater. Since companies spend more on QA to make sure their products are not buggy and look good, the traditional testing is not enough. Test cases are manual and take time, automation also has its limits, especially when it comes to user interfaces with complex and fast-changing elements. AI Driven Testing comes into play in this case revolutionizing the way the software quality is ensured.

Applitools Autonomous is a leading AI-based testing platform that reduces the time and effort required to create, maintain and run tests. The most effective way of using it is as a tool in visual and functional testing, and a valid scalable solution for contemporary applications.

**In this blog, **we will explore AI-Driven Testing, what are the challenges of testing modern applications and how AI-powered testing tool like Applitools Autonomous helpful in testing the applications.

About AI-Driven Testing
The word AI driven testing describes the usage of artificial intelligence techniques to help the software testing process. Organizations can leverage machine learning, natural language processing and other types of artificial intelligence technologies in order to streamline their testing processes, saving time, resources and reducing the chance to optimize high quality software.

AI Driven Testing Key Concepts

Automation of Test Creation
The manual script writing of traditional testing can be slow, and prone to errors. This is automated with AI driven testing in which test cases are automatically generated from the application’s structure, user flows, and user behaviors. For example, Applitools Autonomous can scan an application's sitemap and spin up comprehensive test suites without you having to do any manual input.

Visual Validation
Visual validation is the strong point of AI driven testing, making sure UI functions and looks good on every device and browser. AI can also detect visual discrepancies and changes to the UI that certainly wouldn’t be picked up by standard testing methods.

Dynamic Test Maintenance
Test cases inevitably grow outdated, and applications are always in flux — that can mean a lot of work to keep them up to date. Testing platforms driven by artificial intelligence automatically adapt the tests to complement changes within the application’s UI or functionality. It reduces the burden of maintenance for QA teams and maintains testing as relevant and efficient.

Predictive Analytics
Because AI can analyze historical test data to predict potential problem areas in an application, teams can concentrate their testing resources on application’s high risk areas. This predictive ability helps an organization’s resources get allocated better and cuts down on the likelihood of critical bugs slipping through the cracks.

Another is Natural Language Processing (NLP). NLP is often part of AI driven testing tools which enable users to create test cases based on plain language text. This feature makes it easier to test, so that non technical team members can collaborate the testing with technical team members.

In the next section you will see the Challenges In Testing Modern applications

Challenges In Testing Modern applications

Below are some of the challenges that we normally face In testing modern applications.

Too Many Scenarios:
Modern applications are highly complex, with hundreds of end-to-end scenarios that need to be tested across a vast array of screens, devices, and browsers.

Too Many Screens & Devices:
In Modern applications, users access digital content on a wide variety of devices, browsers, and screen sizes, each with its own unique characteristics. Manually verifying that an application looks and functions correctly across all these environments is nearly impossible without automated assistance. Traditional testing methods cannot scale to meet this demand, often resulting in inconsistent user experiences and missed visual bugs.

Constant UI Changes:
In dynamic development environments, user interfaces (UIs) are constantly evolving. Even minor changes to the UI can require updates to test scripts. This constant maintenance burden can slow down the development process and lead to outdated or ineffective tests.

Different Skill Sets:
Teams often consist of members with varying technical skills, leading to the use of different tools and approaches to testing. This creates silos within the organization, where engineers and non-technical testers might not collaborate effectively.
So far we have seen the challenges in testing modern applications. Now let's see how we can leverage AI to take over the heavy lifting in testing using Applitools Autonomous.

About Applitools Autonomous

Before we dive into Applitools Autonomous, it's important to understand what autonomous testing is. Let's use a car analogy to differentiate between manual, automated, and autonomous testing.

Manual testing is like driving a car with a manual transmission, where the driver is fully engaged in controlling the Accelerator, Brake, and Clutch (A, B, C). Every action requires constant attention and input from the driver.

Automated testing, on the other hand, is like driving a car with an automatic transmission. While the clutch is handled automatically, the driver still needs to manage the accelerator, brake, steering wheel, etc.. It reduces the manual effort but still requires active engagement.

Autonomous testing is like a self-driving car. Here, you just input your destination, and the car takes over, driving you to your destination while you focus on other things. Similarly, autonomous testing aims to eliminate human intervention, but we're not fully there yet. Just like self-driving cars are still evolving, fully autonomous testing is a future goal we are working towards.

Applitools Autonomous With AI

Applitools Autonomous revolutionizes the testing process by bringing the intelligence and precision of top QA professionals to an unprecedented scale through AI. As the first autonomous testing platform, Applitools Autonomous lightens the load on your development team by automating the entire testing lifecycle—from test creation and execution to maintenance and reporting.

Applitools Autonomous is an autonomous testing platform designed to automate and enhance the entire software testing process.

Here’s a breakdown of how it works:

Automated Test Creation: Applitools Autonomous intelligently scans your application's sitemap to automatically generate comprehensive test cases for every URL. This ensures that your application is thoroughly tested across all pages, eliminating the need for manual test script writing.

AI-Driven Visual Assertions: The platform applies advanced visual AI to monitor and track changes at both functional and visual levels. Whether it's a minor UI adjustment or a significant functional update, Applitools Autonomous ensures that any deviation is detected and addressed, maintaining the highest standards of user experience.

Continuous and Scalable Testing: With Applitools Autonomous, your tests can be seamlessly integrated into your CI/CD pipeline or scheduled to run periodically. This means your application is continuously tested, providing real-time feedback and enabling faster, more reliable releases. The AI-driven approach ensures scalability, making it possible to manage even the most complex applications with ease.

Dynamic Test Updates: As your application evolves, the platform automatically updates tests to reflect changes in the UI or functionality. This reduces the need for manual maintenance and keeps your tests relevant and effective.

Test Results Analysis: After running tests, the platform provides detailed reports, highlighting any issues found. These reports include screenshots, logs, and other relevant data, making it easier to diagnose and fix problems.

Types of Testing with Applitools Autonomous

Applitools Autonomous allows for different types of testing, all powered by its Visual AI:

Full Website Testing: Enter your website URL, and Applitools autonomously crawls and tests every page for both functional and visual consistency.

Functional Testing: Ensure that user flows work as expected, with AI validating both the logic and appearance of your UI elements.

Visual Testing: Identify visual differences and UI discrepancies across devices, providing a consistent user experience.
Regression Testing: Compare current test runs with historical data to catch any regressions introduced by new changes.

API Testing: Automate API validation to ensure backend services work seamlessly with the UI.

In the next section you will see the Key benefit of Applitools Autonomous using Applitool Autonomous.

Key Benefits of Applitools Autonomous and My Thoughts

Applitools Autonomous has some strong features that make it worth looking into if you're trying to streamline your testing process. Here's my take on the key benefits:

Automatic Test Case Generation
One thing I found impressive is how Applitools generates test cases automatically by crawling your site’s sitemap. It saves a lot of manual work, which can really make a difference when you’re managing multiple test scenarios. The fact that you can describe workflows in plain English is a nice touch, making it easier for non-technical folks to get involved.

Faster Test Creation
The speed of test creation is something that stood out to me. Applitools Autonomous claims to generate tests up to 10 times faster, and in practice, it does seem significantly quicker than traditional methods. The ability to instantly validate thousands of elements and group similar errors together really helps to keep things moving efficiently.

AI-Driven UI Validation
The Visual AI is one of the more compelling features. It does a great job of catching both visual and functional issues across different devices and browsers. This kind of coverage is essential if you're dealing with a variety of platforms and need consistent performance and appearance across all of them.

Proactive Bug Detection
I also like how you can schedule tests or integrate them into a CI/CD pipeline. This means you can catch bugs early on, which is always a plus. Dealing with issues earlier in the process tends to save time and money down the line, and the proactive nature of this feature is a big win.

Generative AI for Expanded Coverage
By scanning the root domain, Applitools builds out Visual AI scans for each page. This feature is really useful for getting broader test coverage without much manual effort, something I think teams dealing with large-scale applications will appreciate.

NLP Test Builder
The Natural Language Processing (NLP) test builder is another feature that caught my eye. It allows anyone on the team to create tests by describing steps in plain English, which makes the tool accessible to non-technical members. It definitely lowers the barrier for collaboration, which is always a plus.

Faster Test Execution
Running tests at scale can be a pain, but Applitools Autonomous handles this well with its DOM replication technology. It cuts down on test execution time, which makes it easier to test across multiple browsers and devices efficiently.

Automated Test Maintenance
One of the more practical benefits is the automated test maintenance. As your UI changes, the tests update themselves, which minimizes the need for manual updates. This reduces the ongoing workload and keeps your tests relevant without constant tweaking.

Dashboards and Insights
Lastly, the dashboard is quite intuitive. It consolidates all your test results and provides a clear breakdown, making it easier to analyze outcomes and resolve issues quickly. The actionable insights offered by Applitools help speed up decision-making and improve overall application quality.

In the next section, we will explore the types of applications that are well-suited for testing with Applitools Autonomous.

Applications Suited for Testing Using Applitools Autonomous
Applitools Autonomous is designed to enhance the testing process across a wide variety of applications, making it an ideal choice for different sectors and use cases.

Here are some of the types of applications that are particularly well-suited for testing with Applitools Autonomous:

Web Applications
Applitools Autonomous can help web applications in particular, and those with dynamic user interfaces in general, in a big way. What’s more, this platform is capable of carrying out full website tests, to ensure that not only every page on the website is working as anticipated, but the brand appears as intended across all browsers and devices.

Example: An example of a social media platform like Facebook would require constant update to its feature and UI in some way. By automating testing, we can be sure that the user interface stays consistent across browsers and devices — e.g. post creation, messaging, and notifications — with Applitools.

Mobile Applications
Because users have access to the same application on different mobile devices, testing responsive design, testing functionality or both are absolutely necessary. The main thing that Applitools Autonomous shines at is validating mobile apps so that they always have a clear, smooth experience across various screen sizes and orientations.

Example: Instagram is dependent on visual appearance and relies on mobile applications. Applitools Autonomous is able to validate that images load correctly (or the user interface adapts to different devices) and that the app’s functionality is still in check after an update.

E-Commerce Platforms
E-commerce applications need to be very well tested to make sure a user can smoothly navigate around, make purchases and get correct information. The Applitools Autonomous engine can be expanded to verify the visual aspects of the platform and the functional flows (e.g. shopping cart, payment process …) as well.

Example: There are several features that Amazon has to validate: product search, shopping cart functionality, payment process. Using Applitools we can address these problems by automating the visual and functional testing of all elements to make sure that everything does work seamlessly and the users all get a consistent user experience across different devices.

SaaS Products
Examples of software as a service (SaaS) applications are constantly delivered enhanced with new features and enhancements. Autonomous from Applitools helps you make sure existing functionality does not break while validating the user interface against any visual differences in a regression backlog.

Example: CRM tools such as Salesforce are always busy introducing new features. Applitools Autonomous can run regression tests that run automatically to verify that new updates do not break existing functionalities and the user interface is still friendly for the user.

Healthcare Applications
In the healthcare sector, applications must be user-friendly and reliable. Applitools Autonomous can validate that interfaces are intuitive and that crucial functionalities, such as patient records or appointment scheduling, work without issues.

Example: In the healthcare sector, applications must be user-friendly and reliable. Applitools Autonomous ensures that crucial functionalities, such as appointment scheduling and medical record access, are tested for both usability and visual consistency, thereby

Conclusion

In a rapidly evolving tech landscape, the need for high-quality software has become paramount. As traditional testing methods struggle to keep pace with the increasing complexity of applications, AI-driven testing solutions like Applitools Autonomous emerge as game-changers. This platform not only streamlines the testing process through automation but also enhances the quality of software by leveraging advanced AI techniques.

About Autor:
Kailash Pathak (Applitools Ambassador | Cypress Ambassador)
Senior QA Lead Manager with over 15 years of experience in QA engineering and automation. Kailash holds certifications including PMI-ACP®, ITIL®, PRINCE2 Practitioner®, ISTQB, and AWS (CFL).

Visual Regression Testing Using Playwright

Kailash P. — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 16:31:36 +0000

“Have you ever thought, ‘Why wasn’t that noticed?’ or ‘Is the bug so obvious that it should have been caught right away? Commonly said, particularly when formatting or layout bugs are not noticed in the attempt. Although these are not necessarily functional concerns, they do impact on the usability interface to a very great extent.

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Amid the fast-moving process of delivering software, the time spent on reviewing web pages manually is progressively reducing. In order to maintain the speed of modern development, we require tools that help keep our designs and layouts preserved and safe from changes. That is where Visual Regression Testing comes handy.

Cypress vs. Selenium: Choosing the Best Tool for Your Automation Needs

Kailash P. — Sun, 15 Sep 2024 13:38:16 +0000

Cypress vs. Selenium: Choosing the Best Tool for Your Automation Needs
Choosing the right testing tool for your project can be a challenging task. Two of the most widely used options are Cypress and Selenium, and understanding their features can help you make an informed decision.

Click on the link ** Cypress vs. Selenium **For more detail

Cypress is an End-to-End (E2E) testing framework designed for modern web applications and built on JavaScript. Its unique architecture allows for fast and reliable testing of web applications. Cypress integrates smoothly with tools and frameworks like Angular, Vue, React, and more. Cypress automatically waits for elements to be ready before interacting with them, reducing flakiness in tests. Its time-travel debugging feature allows users to visually step through commands in the browser for easier troubleshooting

On the other hand, Selenium is a more established and highly flexible tool in the testing landscape. It supports multiple programming languages, including Java, Python, C#, and JavaScript, and offers extensive cross-browser testing capabilities.
This blog will help you understand the criteria for choosing the most suitable tool for your project between cypress vs selenium.

Transform User Actions into Cypress Tests with Applitools TestGenAI

Kailash P. — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 13:55:13 +0000

In the majority of cases, we prefer to build our automation framework using the Page Object Model (POM) design pattern.

Now, imagine having a 🔨 tool that automatically records and generates

POM(page classes) for us. How much easier would our work become?

⚙ Applitools TestGenAI for Cypress provides us this capability.

🔍 Applitools TestGenAI for Cypress empowers users to quickly create robust, auto healing automated tests that can validate even the most complex scenarios within seconds.

Cypress Debugging: How to Get Started

Kailash P. — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 08:29:44 +0000

Writing code quickly is a valuable skill, but the true mark of a proficient software developer is the ability to effectively debug and resolve errors and bugs. Debugging is a critical aspect of the development process, ensuring that software functions as intended and meets user needs.

Methods of debugging in Cypress
Debugging in Cypress can be performed using various methods, including command logs, .pause(), .debug(), cy.log(), console.log(), and the native JavaScript debugger.

Below are various methods of debugging the test case in Cypress

Click on links to know in detail about Cypress debugging

Cypress debugging using command logs
Cypress debugging using method .pause()
Cypress debugging using .debug() method
Cypress debugging using cy.log()
Cypress debugging using console.log()
Cypress debugging using native debugger
Cypress debugging using screenshot and video