## Context

The project already has API, DB, and contract-style tests, but recent regressions (theme contrast/state accessibility and contact tooltip behavior) exposed a gap in browser-native UI/UX regression detection. Current checks do not consistently validate interaction states across themes, breakpoints, and keyboard/pointer paths using a real rendering engine.

This change introduces a Playwright-centered UI/UX testing design that covers existing product capabilities end-to-end, while staying compatible with current quality-gate flow and OpenSpec requirements.

## Goals / Non-Goals

**Goals:**
- Establish a deterministic Playwright test architecture for UI/UX regression prevention.
- Build a capability-to-test coverage matrix mapped to existing OpenSpec specs.
- Validate all critical interaction states: default, hover, focus-visible, active/pressed, and visited where applicable.
- Validate key journeys across light, dark, and contrast themes and across mobile/tablet/desktop breakpoints.
- Integrate Playwright execution into CI quality gates with actionable artifacts (trace, video/screenshot on failure).

**Non-Goals:**
- Replacing existing API/DB tests.
- Pixel-perfect visual diff for every component in this phase.
- Introducing new product behavior unrelated to testing.

## Decisions

### Decision 1: Use capability-driven Playwright test organization
- **Choice:** Organize tests by capability groups aligned to OpenSpec specs (e.g., `summary-modal-experience`, `share-and-contact-microinteractions`).
- **Why:** Makes regression ownership and traceability explicit and keeps specs/test synchronization straightforward.
- **Alternative considered:** Organize by page-only files. Rejected because cross-capability assertions become fragmented and harder to audit.

### Decision 2: Add a reusable test harness with deterministic fixtures
- **Choice:** Build shared Playwright fixtures for theme selection, viewport profiles, seeded content, and stable selectors.
- **Why:** Prevents flaky setup differences and reduces duplicated orchestration logic.
- **Alternative considered:** Per-test custom setup. Rejected due to drift and higher maintenance.

### Decision 3: Use interaction-state assertions, not just presence assertions
- **Choice:** Assert computed styles and behavior transitions for focus/hover/active/link states on key controls.
- **Why:** The reported regressions were state-specific and escaped static presence checks.
- **Alternative considered:** DOM existence-only assertions. Rejected as insufficient for UX quality.

### Decision 4: Add tiered execution profile for CI speed and depth
- **Choice:** Define smoke profile (PR) and full profile (main/nightly) while both remain gating where required by policy.
- **Why:** Balances quick feedback with comprehensive coverage.
- **Alternative considered:** Always run full matrix on every PR. Rejected due to avoidable CI latency.

### Decision 5: Capture failure diagnostics by default
- **Choice:** Enable trace-on-retry and screenshot/video on failure.
- **Why:** UI failures are often environment- and timing-sensitive; diagnostics reduce mean time to fix.
- **Alternative considered:** Logs-only. Rejected for weak debuggability.

## Risks / Trade-offs

- **[Risk] Flaky tests from network/data timing** -> **Mitigation:** deterministic fixtures, route stubbing/controlled seeds for unstable dependencies, explicit wait-for conditions tied to user-visible state.
- **[Risk] CI runtime increase** -> **Mitigation:** split smoke/full profiles and parallel workers with bounded retries.
- **[Risk] Selector fragility during UI refinements** -> **Mitigation:** standardize test-id/role-based selectors for critical controls and avoid brittle CSS-path selectors.
- **[Risk] Theme/breakpoint matrix explosion** -> **Mitigation:** capability-priority matrix (must-cover flows across all themes; lower-risk flows sampled strategically).

## Migration Plan

1. Add Playwright config and shared fixtures with environment-safe defaults.
2. Implement capability-mapped smoke scenarios first (high-risk UX/accessibility flows).
3. Expand to complete matrix scenarios for themes and breakpoints.
4. Wire smoke profile into PR quality gate and full profile into main/nightly gate.
5. Publish test strategy/coverage mapping documentation and triage rules.

Rollback strategy:
- If CI instability occurs, temporarily gate on smoke profile while isolating flaky cases; do not remove previously passing coverage without replacement.

## Open Questions

- Which environment should provide canonical seeded data for full-profile runs (local fixture API vs shared staging snapshot)?
- Should visual snapshots be introduced in this phase for selected high-risk components (hero, modal, footer controls), or deferred?
- What retry policy threshold should fail fast versus quarantine for flaky-only diagnostics?
