chore: watch mode improvements (#7326)

e2e/README.md

@@ -574,6 +574,15 @@ A single e2e test in Open MCT is extended to run:
 - How is Open MCT extending default Playwright functionality?
 - What about Component Testing?
 
+### Writing Tests
+
+Playwright provides 3 supported methods of debugging and authoring tests:
+- A 'watch mode' for running tests locally and debugging on the fly
+- A 'debug mode' for debugging tests and writing assertions against tests
+- A 'VSCode plugin' for debugging tests within the VSCode IDE.
+
+Generally, we encourage folks to use the watch mode and provide a script `npm run test:e2e:watch` which launches the launch mode ui and enables hot reloading on the dev server.
+
 ### e2e Troubleshooting
 
 Please follow the general guide troubleshooting in [the general troubleshooting doc](../TESTING.md#troubleshooting-ci)

e2e/playwright-watch.config.js

@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+/* eslint-disable no-undef */
+// playwright.config.js
+// @ts-check
+
+// eslint-disable-next-line no-unused-vars
+const { devices } = require('@playwright/test');
+const MAX_FAILURES = 5;
+const NUM_WORKERS = 2;
+
+/** @type {import('@playwright/test').PlaywrightTestConfig} */
+const config = {
+  retries: 0, //Retries 2 times for a total of 3 runs. When running sharded and with max-failures=5, this should ensure that flake is managed without failing the full suite
+  testDir: 'tests',
+  timeout: 60 * 1000,
+  webServer: {
+    command: 'npm run start', //Start in dev mode for hot reloading
+    url: 'http://localhost:8080/#',
+    timeout: 200 * 1000,
+    reuseExistingServer: true //This was originally disabled to prevent differences in local debugging vs. CI. However, it significantly speeds up local debugging.
+  },
+  maxFailures: MAX_FAILURES, //Limits failures to 5 to reduce CI Waste
+  workers: NUM_WORKERS, //Limit to 2 for CircleCI Agent
+  use: {
+    baseURL: 'http://localhost:8080/',
+    headless: true,
+    ignoreHTTPSErrors: true,
+    screenshot: 'only-on-failure',
+    trace: 'on-first-retry',
+    video: 'off'
+  },
+  projects: [
+    {
+      name: 'chrome',
+      testMatch: '**/*.spec.js', // run all tests
+      use: {
+        browserName: 'chromium'
+      }
+    }
+  ],
+  reporter: [
+    ['list'],
+    [
+      'html',
+      {
+        open: 'never',
+        outputFolder: '../html-test-results' //Must be in different location due to https://github.com/microsoft/playwright/issues/12840
+      }
+    ],
+    ['junit', { outputFile: '../test-results/results.xml' }],
+    ['@deploysentinel/playwright']
+  ]
+};
+
+module.exports = config;

package.json

@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@
     "test:e2e:visual:ci": "percy exec --config ./e2e/.percy.ci.yml --partial -- npx playwright test --config=e2e/playwright-visual-a11y.config.js --project=chrome --grep-invert @unstable",
     "test:e2e:visual:full": "percy exec --config ./e2e/.percy.nightly.yml -- npx playwright test --config=e2e/playwright-visual-a11y.config.js --grep-invert @unstable",
     "test:e2e:full": "npx playwright test --config=e2e/playwright-ci.config.js --grep-invert @couchdb",
-    "test:e2e:watch": "npx playwright test --ui --config=e2e/playwright-ci.config.js",
+    "test:e2e:watch": "npx playwright test --ui --config=e2e/playwright-watch.config.js",
     "test:perf:contract": "npx playwright test --config=e2e/playwright-performance-dev.config.js",
     "test:perf:localhost": "npx playwright test --config=e2e/playwright-performance-prod.config.js --project=chrome",
     "test:perf:memory": "npx playwright test --config=e2e/playwright-performance-prod.config.js --project=chrome-memory",