Case study 01 / Comcast
Modernizing regression with Playwright.
A legacy automation migration focused on faster feedback, reusable test foundations, and clearer failure diagnosis.
The challenge
A legacy WebdriverIO suite needed a more maintainable foundation for regression testing across a B2B commerce and order-management platform.
My contribution
- Migrated the legacy WebdriverIO framework to Playwright and TypeScript, with reusable fixtures and per-environment configuration.
- Introduced parallel execution and trace-based reporting to shorten the feedback cycle and investigate failures.
- Built API utilities to create, reset, and clean up accounts and devices before regression runs.
- Separated environment issues, application defects, and automation problems using traces, HAR files, network logs, and DOM analysis.
The outcome
About 40% less regression time
The resume reports an approximately 40% reduction in regression runtime, alongside fewer flaky test failures. The underlying client execution reports are not included here.
Engineering example
What a reusable fixture should make explicit
// Illustrative pattern, not client source code
const test = base.extend({
account: async ({ request }, use) => {
const account = await createTestAccount(request);
try {
await use(account);
} finally {
await deleteTestAccount(request, account.id);
}
}
});Independent illustration of the approach. No proprietary client code or production data.
The takeaway
Parallel execution is useful only when tests own their data. Account setup and cleanup belong in the framework so each test starts from a known state.
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