Cypress + JavaScript
+ Mochawesome Framework

The Purpose

Cypress runs inside the browser — in the same event loop as the application under test. This architectural difference from Playwright and Selenium produces unique capabilities: real-time test runner with time-travel debugging, built-in network stubbing via cy.intercept(), and efficient auth state caching via cy.session().

This is Stack 4 of the Cross-Stack Series — the same QA Lab target tested with different frameworks to enable direct, evidence-based comparison. The framework demonstrates idiomatic Cypress patterns: plain JS page objects, custom commands, and @smoke tag filtering via @cypress/grep.

Key differentiator vs Stack 1 (Playwright TS): Cypress’s browser-native architecture makes cy.intercept() network stubbing seamless and the interactive Test Runner uniquely productive for debugging — at the cost of cross-origin iframe support.

⚠ IFrame trade-off documented: Cross-origin iframe support is an architectural limitation of Cypress. IFrame tests are intentionally skipped in this stack (it.skip() with documented reason) — not hidden. Playwright (Stack 1) covers iframes fully.

Architecture Constraints

Every decision reflects real Cypress ecosystem requirements:

• Page objects as plain JS objects — not ES6 classes, return cy chains, no assertions inside
• cy.session() for auth state caching — shared across tests, clears between spec files
• cy.intercept() for network assertions — no arbitrary cy.wait(number) timeouts
• Custom commands in commands.js — scrollToSection, waitForButtonState, getTableRow
• @smoke tag via @cypress/grep — filtered smoke run on every push, no testng.xml needed
• Mochawesome reporter with json:true — merge step required for single HTML output
• retries: { runMode: 2 } — CI retry strategy, no retry in interactive mode
• ESLint 9 + eslint-plugin-cypress — cy.wait(number) lint rule enforced
• iframes.cy.js contains only it.skip() with documented rationale — not deleted