1.7Exercises

Exercise 1.1: Tool Audit (Beginner)

Look at your current or most recent project. Answer these questions:

1. What browser automation tool does it use?
2. How are browser drivers managed (manually downloaded, package manager, built-in)?
3. What is the approximate flake rate? (Run the suite 5 times and count inconsistent results.)
4. How long does the full suite take to run?
5. What happens when a test fails? (Screenshot? Video? Trace? Nothing?)

Exercise 1.2: Architecture Comparison (Intermediate)

Draw two sequence diagrams:

1. A Selenium test that navigates to a page, finds an input, types text, clicks a button, and verifies the result. Show every HTTP request.
2. The same test in Playwright. Show the WebSocket messages.

Count the number of protocol round-trips in each. What is the ratio?

Exercise 1.3: Flakiness Analysis (Advanced)

If you have access to a CI system with browser tests:

1. Export the last 30 days of test results.
2. Identify every test that had at least one failure and at least one pass in that period.
3. Calculate the flake rate for each test and the suite overall.
4. Categorize the root causes: race condition, shared state, external dependency, or other.

What percentage of failures were real bugs vs. flakiness?