flowchart TB accTitle: Vercel Preview Smoke Test accDescr { This regression runs against the real Vercel Preview deployment created for a pull request. } A["Vercel Preview Smoke Test"] --> B["VERCEL_PREVIEW_SMOKE_TEST.md"] B --> C["Auto-generated placeholder diagram"]

Vercel Preview Smoke Test

This regression runs against the real Vercel Preview deployment created for a pull request.

Simple Summary

NutsNews checks every preview site before merge. The check opens the live preview, clicks through the public reader controls, and makes sure the site still works.

Intermediate Summary

The preview smoke test verifies real deployed behavior instead of mocked local fixtures. Language checks require the first article card to match the API translation metadata. English fallback is allowed only when the API marks the first article as translation_available=false, language_code=en, and requested_language_code=<selected language>.

Expert Summary

The workflow is .github/workflows/vercel-preview-smoke.yml and the test entry point is web/tests/vercel-preview-smoke.spec.ts. The language regression validates that each language selection makes a successful /api/articles?lang=<code> request, updates the document lang, reads the first article’s language_code, requested_language_code, and translation_available fields, and then requires the rendered card lang to match that explicit contract. It intentionally does not compare fallback languages against a fixed English title, because live Vercel preview responses can contain different current article ordering while still honoring English fallback semantics.

What it verifies

The Playwright smoke test opens the deployed preview URL and verifies:

The homepage renders article cards.
Apps, About, Contact, and Privacy pages load from the preview.
The footer Home button scrolls the homepage back to the top with animated movement.
Footer search for dogs returns at least one result.
The Settings menu opens and every theme can be applied and persisted.
The Language menu requests French, Japanese, Swiss German, German, and Greek feeds; each response succeeds, updates the page language, and renders the first card in the requested language when translation_available=true, or English only when the response explicitly documents a missing translation fallback.

How it runs

The workflow .github/workflows/vercel-preview-smoke.yml listens for deployment_status events. When Vercel reports a successful non-production vercel.app deployment, GitHub Actions runs:

cd web
PLAYWRIGHT_BASE_URL="https://your-vercel-preview-url.vercel.app" npm run test:e2e:preview

The same workflow can be started manually with workflow_dispatch by entering a preview URL.

Local runs against protected Vercel preview URLs need the same automation bypass secret. Without that local environment value, the suite may time out before article cards render even though the GitHub Actions job can reach the deployment.

Immutable test policy

The preview smoke test, the immutable guard, and the offline public web E2E regression remain high-signal review surfaces. The immutable guard reports protected test/workflow changes in CI so reviewers can inspect them, but it no longer requires a standalone manual approval token before every pull request.

Issue #279 translation reliability coverage

Simple: preview smoke no longer accepts English for every selected language.
Intermediate: available translations must render with the selected language code, while English is accepted only for explicit missing-translation metadata.
Expert: this keeps live-preview testing flexible for changing production article ordering while still making silent translation regressions release-visible.

Protected Vercel preview deployments

If Vercel Deployment Protection or Vercel Authentication is enabled for preview deployments, GitHub Actions must send Vercel’s automation bypass secret with the Playwright requests.

In Vercel, open the NutsNews project.
Go to Settings -> Deployment Protection.
Under Protection Bypass for Automation, create a secret for GitHub Actions / Playwright.
Add the same value to the GitHub repository secret named VERCEL_AUTOMATION_BYPASS_SECRET.

The Playwright config sends the secret as the x-vercel-protection-bypass header and sets x-vercel-set-bypass-cookie: true so browser follow-up requests can reach the protected deployment. Do not commit the secret.

Primary diagram