Scary Test Automation POCs Made Easy: Halloween Special With Paul Grossman
with Paul Grossman
Dark Arts Wizard · Agentic Test Automation
October 20, 2026 
Hosted by Joe Colantonio 
Key takeaways
What you'll learn in this episode
Use a 177 feature checklist to compare tools side by side, saved locally so your data stays yours, with room to add any tool you find.
See how AI driven and codeless tools stack up on build time and run time using Paul’s 10 step Candy Mapper challenge.
Practice on sandbox sites like Candy Mapper, Ministry of Testing’s Shady Acres, and the SelectorsHub shadow DOM page.
Save tokens and time with Copilot CLI, and keep your AI on your rules with a copilot instructions file in .github.
Catch disappearing toast messages with Playwright listeners and use slowMo to stop false failures on fast loading pages.
About this episode
Running a proof of concept on test automation tools can feel like a horror movie. Vendors promise everything, your boss wants answers fast, and you don’t know what you don’t know. In this Halloween special, Paul Grossman, the Dark Arts Wizard, walks through his free personal automation tool POC checklist and shares the AI and Playwright tricks he’s picked up this year.
Plus a Halloween lightning round: the flakiest test ever, the scariest phrase a manager can say, and which horror monster test automation really is.
He co-authored “Enhanced Test Automation with WebdriverIO" with Larry Goddard.
Most recently he started supporting a Typescript Playwright called Optimus Prime.
Paul has been Joe Colantonio's Test Guild guest every Halloween for 10 years. At conferences he always has a live demo and the occasional magic trick.
Paul's current passion is leveraging Agentic LLMs to implement missing features automation platforms.
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