Testing Strategy

Testing is organized as a deployment gate, not as a loose checklist. Fast deterministic checks run before any production deploy is triggered, while browser smoke tests run after Coolify has published the new version and the public health endpoints are reachable.

Unit Tests

Unit and service tests protect the business rules before a build is allowed to reach Coolify.

Layer	What is covered	Command
Frontend	component states, validation, error rendering, session behavior, cards and formatting helpers	cd frontend && npm test -- --run
Backend	access evaluation, subscriptions, platform billing, posts, projects, activity, profile/avatar behavior	cd backend && npm test
Smart contracts	plan registration, ERC-20/native subscription payment, platform fee split, paidUntil extension, owner-only methods	cd solidity && npm test

The deployment workflow also runs cd frontend && npm run lint, cd frontend && npm run build, cd backend && npx tsc -p tsconfig.json --noEmit, and cd documentation && npm run docs:build. If any of these checks fail, the backend image is not pushed and Coolify webhooks are not called.

CI intentionally uses cd backend && npm test for backend service tests instead of encore test. encore test fetches Encore Cloud development secrets and requires an authenticated Encore session, which is not available on a clean GitHub runner. The Encore CLI remains part of deployment where it is needed for encore build docker.

E2E / Acceptance Tests

Playwright covers public acceptance smoke scenarios without requiring seed data or wallet signing in the first version.

Mode	How it runs	Command
Local E2E	Builds frontend, starts Vite preview on 127.0.0.1:4173, then runs Playwright against that local URL. No production secrets are required.	cd frontend && npm run e2e:install && npm run e2e
Production E2E	Runs against https://usecontent.app after production health checks pass. Used by post-deploy and manual GitHub Actions workflows.	cd frontend && npm run e2e:prod
Manual production E2E	Starts from GitHub Actions workflow_dispatch, or from CLI via gh workflow run e2e-production.yml. It does not deploy a new version.	GitHub Actions UI or gh workflow run

Current acceptance smoke scenarios:

Given the public application is deployed
When a visitor opens the homepage
Then the application shell renders without a runtime crash

Given the public discovery feed is available
When a visitor opens the feed
Then the page shows public cards, an empty state, or a recoverable error state

Given a public post contains previewable media
When a visitor opens the media tile
Then the lightbox dialog opens, keeps the download action visible, and closes with Escape

Coverage

The current suite gives coverage across the critical deployment path:

• frontend unit/component behavior and production build regressions;
• backend business rules for access, content visibility, subscriptions, platform billing and projects;
• Solidity payment and fee logic through Hardhat;
• documentation build integrity;
• production availability smoke through frontend and backend health endpoints;
• public browser smoke for the app shell, feed rendering and media lightbox.

Intentional V1 gaps:

• wallet signing flows are not automated in Playwright yet;
• paid subscription happy paths are covered by backend/contract tests, not by browser E2E;
• production E2E is tolerant of missing public content and does not seed data;
• no browser visual-diff coverage is enabled yet.

These gaps are deliberate because the first E2E layer must run safely against production without private keys, seed endpoints or paid test wallets.

Verification

Run these locally before pushing a risky change:

Area	Command
Backend tests	cd backend && npm test
Backend typecheck	cd backend && npx tsc -p tsconfig.json --noEmit
Frontend lint	cd frontend && npm run lint
Frontend tests	cd frontend && npm test -- --run
Frontend build	cd frontend && npm run build
Frontend E2E local	cd frontend && npm run e2e:install && npm run e2e
Frontend E2E production	cd frontend && npm run e2e:prod
Smart contracts	cd solidity && npm test
Documentation build	cd documentation && npm run docs:build

The repository is not a single root package workspace, so commands intentionally run inside each package directory.

In CI, .github/workflows/deploy.yml runs the quality gate before deploy, triggers Coolify only after the gate passes, waits for https://usecontent.app/healthz and https://api.usecontent.app/health, then runs the production Playwright smoke suite. .github/workflows/e2e-production.yml runs the same production smoke suite manually without deploying.