Testing Copilot, Playwright Studio, Continuous Quality Prediction and more TGNS135

[00:00:00] Joe Colantonio How can you automate the most time-consuming aspects of testing? Have you tried the new open-source Playwright studio? And do you know that Gartner predicts that 70% of engineering teams are going to shift to continuous quality in 2026? Find out in this episode of The Test Guild News show for the week of September 8th. So grab your favorite cup of coffee or tea and let's do this.

[00:00:20] Joe Colantonio First up is all about a new copilot to help QA teams. Testsigma just released a new gen AI powered copilot assistant for QA teams, and it goes over how it integrates into testing this low code platform that uses a tool that leverages advanced language models to automate and streamline the testing process, and some other features that are listed as it helps you with automated test case generation. Multiple inputs, including user stories and Figma designs, which a lot of people have asked me about screenshots and existing test management systems. It also helps you a comprehensive test coverage by suggesting additional scenarios and uncovers edge cases with minimal input. And it also helps in API test case generation which automatically will create API test cases from Json inputs. It also helps with interactive test creation, which uses prompts to interact with Copilot using actions that allows auto generated test cases for desired scenarios. Sound good? Well check it out for yourself using the link in the comment down below to see if Gen AI can improve your test automation, and also get a demo and let me know what you think.

[00:01:29] Joe Colantonio In the last news show I missed last week because it was a holiday, but the week before that I mentioned a new open-source tool called INGenious, which is a Playwright studio that I just had learned about, and I got a lot of interest in it. I was actually lucky enough to ask the main contributor if you would join me on my podcast to talk all about it. And I'm excited to say I just released this yesterday, and it talks about INGenious, which is a low code test automation framework based on Playwright that was designed to empower business users in the testing process. And it also shares insights on overcoming the challenges of traditional coding solutions emphasize the importance of business user involvement and the cost-effective advantages of using open-source tools. He also explains how INGenious seamlessly transitioned from Selenium to Playwright, enhancing reliability and eliminating the need for Glue code and BDD approaches in the step definitions. Give it a listen to discover how this new framework supports comprehensive enterprise grade testing, from web applications to APIs, databases and mobile testing, while also fostering a collaborative culture through community feedback and contributions.

[00:02:37] Joe Colantonio Did you know that Gartner predicts that 70% of engineering teams are going to shift continuous quality in 2026, up from 20% last year alone? If not, you might want to join me on the webinar of the week. Where we go over continuous quality and how it's the foundation of any organizations ability to serve and delight its customers. Do you know what leading enterprises are doing to create exceptional experiences and avoid costly software outages? I recommend you join us on Sauce Lab's Continuous Quality Innovation series. This particular one is happening this Thursday, September 12th. I'm going to go over how you can enhance your efficiency with unlimited scale and coverage in your testing environments. We're also going to go over how you can eliminate risk and catching bugs early with a secure testing infrastructure. And you're going to learn how to accelerate your testing velocity so developers have more time to innovate. This is happening this week. I highly recommend you register as soon as possible. Hope to see you there. You can find a link to this register down below.

[00:03:38] Joe Colantonio Speaking of Playwright, do you know how dynamic tagging in your Playwright can help transform your test automation? No? Well, check out this latest article I just found on medium that actually delves into the significant capabilities of dynamic tagging within Playwright. And this article emphasizes how dynamic tagging allows testers to adapt to dynamic and ever-changing web elements by assigning tags to elements dynamically through the testing process, and it goes off how this feature substantially improves the stability and reliability of automated tests, which are essential for maintaining high quality software. And the author also explains how traditional methods of element identification, such as static selectors, often feel within web elements, changing frequently or unpredictably. And dynamic tagging addresses limitation by allowing testers to define tags that adjust in real time based on the state or attributes of web elements, and this post also provides a practical guide to implementing this feature in Playwright, and showcases examples where dynamic tagging has successfully mitigated issues of test flakiness and brittleness. They also highlight the performance benefits, reduce maintenance costs, and enhance scalability with using dynamic tagging within an automated testing suite. A really cool approach. If you're not tuning already in and you are using Playwright. Definitely something to look into for yourself as well.

[00:04:57] Joe Colantonio Also, I want to let you know that this week I'm officially opening the 2025 Online Automation Guild conference call for speakers. So this is going to be our 9th annual online event dedicated to helping folks succeed with creating what I like to call automation awesomeness. If you don't know, what I do is I poll previous guild attendees every year and ask what topics they want to hear more about. Now, what I want to hear about or guess about. It's what they really want to hear more about. And based on that, I put together a call for speakers with those topics that they said they were interested in hearing more and that they struggling with. If you head on over to Testguild.com/callforspeakers, I'll have a link for it down below. You can actually check out the topics and see if you have any sessions around these topics that you think will benefit the guild community. And you can also make a little extra money as well. Head on over to that link down below. Let me know your session idea and hopefully we'll see you at next year's Online Automation Guild.

[00:05:54] Joe Colantonio And also one of the topics The Guild told me they want to hear more about is contract testing. I was really happy to find I stumble across this recent blog post by Craig that explains the concept and significance of contract testing in software development. Craig explains the concept and the significance of contract testing in the software development lifecycle. If you don't know, contract testing focuses on verifying the interaction between microservices and ensuring the changes in one service don't break the functionality of another. And this method is essential in modern application architectures where multiple microservices must interact seamlessly. Greg highlights that traditional testing methods often fall short in dynamic environments where microservices are continually deployed and updated, and contract testing introduces a layer of reliability by validating service agreements, contracts, and catching integration issues early. This ensures the individual service changes does not have unintended side effects on other services, hopefully promoting a resilient and stable system architecture. Another must read that you could find in the links down below.

[00:07:02] Joe Colantonio Do you need to do email testing and do you use Cypress? If so, this next post might be for you. This recent blog post by Joel discusses the integration of Cypress with MailSlurp for enhanced email testing. And the post highlights how this combination simplifies the process of end-to-end testing by enabling users to manage test and automate email functionality seamlessly. In this article, Joel demonstrates how to use Cypress with MailSlurp, which I didn't know is a service that allows developers to generate real email addresses and intercept emails for testing purposes. And its integration with Cypress brings a lot of benefits and ease to making email testing more accessible and easy within your Cypress testing flow, and the fusion of these two tools allows testers to automate the creation, sending, and verification of emails within a test scenario. And this can be particularly valuable for applications that require email confirmations, password resets, or any other email related actions.

[00:08:01] Joe Colantonio And our coding standards are still important for test code or do use code existing test codes? If not, here's another article, this one by Benjamin, who just released this one on highlighting the crucial role that standardized coding practices play in ensuring consistent, reliable, and maintainable test code. This article, Benjamin emphasizes that coding standards help to reduce error rates and streamline debugging processes. Consistent code formatting and naming conventions make it simpler to identify and fix issues, thereby improving overall software quality. Furthermore, standardized code can enhance collaborative efforts within the development teams, allowing multiple testers to work more effectively and efficiently together. And following these standards not only streamlines the testing process, but also enhances collaboration and hopefully minimizes the risk of errors. It's a really great practice if not doing already, you should definitely check out and try it for yourself.

[00:08:54] Joe Colantonio I also found another testing open-source tool you might be interested in. Mohammed just released a project called RESTful E-commerce, and it caught my attention because it's getting a lot of buzz with over 380 people at the time of this recording liking it. And if you don't know, it's a simple node e-commerce application used for testing RESTful web services. And if you go to the GitHub repository for this, it goes of how this backend application is built for testers to practice API testing manually using tools like postman, or using API test automation tools like SuperTest. Rest-Assured, Playwright, Cypress, and others.

[00:09:30] Joe Colantonio All right, for links of everything of value we covered in this news episode. Head on over to all those links in the comments down below. That's it for this episode of the Test Guild News Show. I'm Joe, my mission is to help you succeed in creating end-to-end full stack pipeline automation awesomeness. As always, tests everything and keep to good. Cheers.