topola-viewer/docs/PROBERS_DESIGN.md

Prober Tests Design Document

1. Problem Statement

Topola Viewer is deployed to two environments — GitHub Pages and apps.wikitree.com — and depends on external services outside of our control: the WikiTree API and a third-party CORS proxy (topolaproxy.bieda.it). Any of these moving parts can break independently of our code: the WikiTree API can change its response schema or rate-limit requests, the CORS proxy can go down or change its URL scheme, and a deployment can silently introduce a routing or build issue that only manifests in production. Our existing test suite is hermetic — it mocks all network calls — so it verifies code correctness but cannot detect when the live, deployed system stops working end-to-end. We need lightweight smoke tests ("probers") that run against the live deployed URLs to catch real-world breakage, both immediately after each deployment and on a daily schedule.

2. The Technical Plan

The prober system consists of four independent smoke tests, each targeting a specific combination of deployment target and data path. Three of the four tests launch a real browser and navigate to a live deployed URL. The fourth pulls the Docker image published to GHCR, runs it locally, and verifies that the containerized application starts and renders data. All tests verify that the chart renders, the side panel shows the expected person's name, and no error message is displayed.

The four probers are:

1. WikiTree direct API prober — Loads a known WikiTree profile (Skłodowska-2) from the app deployed on apps.wikitree.com. This exercises the direct WikiTree API path (no CORS proxy) and confirms the WikiTree deployment is healthy.

2. GitHub Pages GEDCOM prober — Loads a GEDCOM file from a raw GitHub URL through the app on pewu.github.io. Because the app is not on the apps.wikitree.com domain, it routes the GEDCOM request through the CORS proxy. This exercises the GitHub Pages deployment, the CORS proxy, and GEDCOM-from-URL loading all at once.

3. WikiTree GEDCOM + CORS proxy prober — Loads the same GEDCOM-from-URL through the app on apps.wikitree.com. Even though the app is on the WikiTree domain, loading GEDCOM from a URL always uses the CORS proxy by default. This confirms the CORS proxy is reachable from the WikiTree deployment.

4. Docker container prober — Pulls the Docker image published to GHCR by deploy-docker.yml, runs it locally with the test GEDCOM file mounted via STATIC_URL, and verifies that the application renders the chart. This exercises the Docker build path (multi-stage Dockerfile, Caddy server configuration, static URL template injection) and confirms the published container image starts and serves data correctly.

Each prober is a standalone GitHub Actions workflow that can be triggered in three ways: automatically after a deploy finishes, on a daily schedule, or manually. When triggered after a deploy, the prober optionally waits a few minutes for the deployment to propagate before running. The Docker prober does not require a propagation wait because the container is available immediately after startup.

The following diagram shows how the components fit together:

flowchart TD
    subgraph Triggers
        DEPLOY["Deploy Everywhere workflow"]
        SCHEDULE["Daily schedule (5:00 UTC)"]
        MANUAL["Manual trigger"]
    end

    subgraph Probers
        P1["WikiTree API prober"]
        P2["GitHub Pages GEDCOM prober"]
        P3["WikiTree CORS proxy prober"]
        P4["Docker container prober"]
    end

    subgraph Live targets
        WT["apps.wikitree.com"]
        GHP["pewu.github.io"]
        WTAPI["WikiTree API"]
        PROXY["CORS proxy (topolaproxy.bieda.it)"]
    end

    subgraph Local targets
        DOCKER["Local Docker container<br/> (pulled from GHCR)"]
    end

    DEPLOY -->|"after deploy + 3 min wait"| P1
    DEPLOY -->|"after deploy + 3 min wait"| P2
    DEPLOY -->|"after deploy + 3 min wait"| P3
    DEPLOY --> P4
    SCHEDULE --> P1
    SCHEDULE --> P2
    SCHEDULE --> P3
    SCHEDULE --> P4
    MANUAL --> P1
    MANUAL --> P2
    MANUAL --> P3
    MANUAL --> P4

    P1 --> WT
    WT --> WTAPI
    P2 --> GHP
    GHP --> PROXY
    P3 --> WT
    WT --> PROXY
    P4 --> DOCKER

Each prober is a small Playwright test spec. Three specs run against live deployed URLs; the Docker prober spec runs against a local Docker container started by the workflow. The specs live in a separate tests/probers/ directory with their own Playwright configuration (playwright.prober.config.ts) so they are completely isolated from the existing hermetic test suite. Note: because the existing playwright.config.ts uses testDir: './tests' and Playwright searches recursively, the e2e project in the existing config must add testIgnore: ['*_visual.spec.ts', 'probers/**'] to prevent prober specs from being picked up by the regular CI test run (npm run test:e2e or npm run test:visual). The prober config does not start a local dev server — each spec navigates to a full absolute URL (or localhost:8080 for the Docker prober). A successful prober means a user can load the app and see data; a failure means something in the chain is broken and triggers an email notification. Note: GitHub Actions only sends email notifications if the user has explicitly enabled email notifications in their GitHub notification settings (Settings → Notifications → Email). If email notifications are disabled, failures are only visible in the Actions UI.

3. Alternatives Considered & Rejected

The following alternatives were evaluated during the design discussion and explicitly rejected. They are documented here to prevent future re-litigation and to serve as guardrails against scope creep.

Alternative A: Unit-level API integration tests against the live

WikiTree API

• Considered: Writing tests that call the raw wikitree-js library functions directly against the live WikiTree API, verifying response schemas and field presence.
• Why Rejected: This tests the wikitree-js dependency, not our code. Our existing Jest unit tests already cover our transformation logic using mocked API responses. The goal of probers is to verify the full end-to-end chain — browser, deployed app, network, API, proxy — not to re-verify API response shapes. Adding a separate layer of API-level integration tests would duplicate coverage without catching deployment or proxy issues.

Alternative B: Testing the CORS proxy on apps.wikitree.com via the

WikiTree data path

• Considered: Forcing the WikiTree API calls through the CORS proxy when the app is deployed on apps.wikitree.com, to test the proxy from that domain.
• Why Rejected: The app hardcodes handleCors based on hostname — on apps.wikitree.com, WikiTree API calls always go direct (no proxy). There is no URL parameter to override this for the WikiTree data source. Forcing the proxy path would require a code change for test-only purposes, which is not justified. Instead, the CORS proxy is tested on apps.wikitree.com through the GEDCOM-from-URL path, which uses the proxy by default regardless of domain.

Alternative C: Monolithic prober workflow with multiple jobs

• Considered: A single prober.yml workflow containing all four prober tests as separate jobs within it.
• Why Rejected: Separate workflow files give finer-grained control in the GitHub Actions UI — each prober can be triggered, re-run, or inspected independently. They also allow each prober to declare a targeted needs dependency on only the relevant deploy job (e.g., the WikiTree prober depends on deploy-wikitree-apps, not deploy-gh-pages). A monolithic workflow would couple all probers to the same trigger and make partial failures harder to manage.

Alternative D: Probers that depend on all deploys finishing

• Considered: Making all four probers wait for all of deploy-gh-pages, deploy-wikitree-apps, and deploy-docker to complete before running any of them.
• Why Rejected: This unnecessarily delays probers whose target has already been deployed. The WikiTree probers only need the WikiTree deploy to finish; the GitHub Pages prober only needs the GitHub Pages deploy. Coupling them to all deploys adds latency without benefit, and means a failure in one deploy would block probers for the other.

Alternative E: Unconditional sleep before every prober run

• Considered: Always waiting 3 minutes at the start of every prober run, regardless of trigger source.
• Why Rejected: The sleep is only necessary after a deploy, to allow GitHub Pages or WikiTree to propagate the new version. For daily scheduled runs and manual triggers, there is no recent deploy to wait for, so the sleep wastes 3 minutes. Instead, a wait_for_propagation input flag is passed as true only when the prober is invoked from the deploy workflow.

Alternative F: Correctness assertions against specific WikiTree profile

data

• Considered: Asserting detailed data fields (e.g., specific birth dates, parent IDs, spouse counts) from the Skłodowska-2 WikiTree profile to verify data correctness.
• Why Rejected: Probers are smoke tests — their job is to verify "does the pipe work?", not "is the data correct?". Data correctness is already verified by the hermetic test suite with controlled fixtures. Coupling probers to specific WikiTree profile data creates fragility: if anyone edits the WikiTree profile, the prober would break even though the system is healthy. Probers assert only that the expected person's name appears in the chart and side panel, and that no error is displayed.

4. Detailed Implementation Plan

This section enumerates every file that will be created or modified, in the order they should be implemented, along with the rationale for each change. The implementation is divided into five steps.

Step 1: Prober Playwright configuration

Create: playwright.prober.config.ts

A separate Playwright configuration file dedicated to prober tests. This file is distinct from the existing playwright.config.ts and serves a different purpose: it does not start a local dev server, does not define visual regression projects, and runs only against live deployed URLs.

Rationale for key configuration decisions:

• No webServer — The existing config starts a Vite dev/preview server on localhost:3000. The prober config does not use Playwright's webServer feature. Live-URL probers navigate to full absolute URLs; the Docker prober's workflow starts the container externally (via docker run) before the test runs, so Playwright connects to localhost:8080 without a webServer definition.
• testDir: './tests/probers' — Prober specs are isolated in their own directory. Additionally, the existing playwright.config.ts e2e project must add testIgnore: ['*_visual.spec.ts', 'probers/**'] to prevent prober specs from being discovered by the regular CI test run, since Playwright searches testDir recursively.
• fullyParallel: false — Tests run sequentially to avoid hammering the live WikiTree API and CORS proxy with concurrent requests, which could trigger rate-limiting.
• retries: 2 — The WikiTree API and CORS proxy can have transient failures. Two retries (same as the existing CI config) provides a buffer against flakiness without masking persistent failures.
• timeout: 120000 — The WikiTree API prober makes multiple sequential API calls (ancestors, descendants, relatives) that can take over 30 seconds under load. The default 30s timeout is too short for live API probers; 120 seconds provides adequate headroom.
• reporter: [['html', {open: 'never'}], ['list']] — Generates an HTML report for upload as a workflow artifact, plus list output for console logs. Without this, no HTML report is produced and there is nothing to upload.
• forbidOnly: true — Since probers always run in CI, forbidOnly should be set to true to prevent test.only from accidentally blocking all other prober specs. (The existing config uses forbidOnly: !!process.env.CI, which achieves the same effect when CI is set, but probers should enforce this unconditionally.)
• Single project named prober using devices['Desktop Chrome'] — No need for separate e2e/visual projects. All prober specs are smoke tests. The project must explicitly use devices['Desktop Chrome'] to ensure a desktop viewport, because the side panel visibility depends on window.matchMedia('(max-width: 767px)') (see src/util/url_args.ts:177). Without an explicit device, Playwright's default viewport may be too narrow, causing the side panel to be hidden and the .details assertion to fail.
• No expect.toHaveScreenshot — Probers do not do visual regression testing; that is handled by the existing visual test project.
• trace: 'on-first-retry', screenshot: 'only-on-failure', video: 'on-first-retry' — For live-URL probers where failures are hard to reproduce, trace files, failure screenshots, and retry videos are essential for debugging.
• locale: 'en-US' — Forces consistent rendering and translation keys, matching the existing CI config. Without this, the app renders in the CI runner's default locale, which is non-deterministic.

Step 2: Prober test specifications

Four test spec files, one per prober. Each follows the same structure but targets a different URL and asserts a different expected name.

Create: tests/probers/wikitree.spec.ts

• Target URL: https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/wiech13/topola-viewer/#/view?source=wikitree&indi=Sk%C5%82odowska-2 (URL-encoded Skłodowska-2 to avoid encoding ambiguity with the non-ASCII character ł in source code).
• Expected name: Skłodowska (from the WikiTree profile Skłodowska-2 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie). The chart displays LastNameAtBirth, which is Skłodowska for this profile.
• What it exercises: WikiTree direct API (no CORS proxy), WikiTree deployment.
• Note: Does not use standalone=true in the URL. The app defaults to standalone mode when not embedded and no static URL is set (see src/util/url_args.ts:198).

Create: tests/probers/gh-pages-gedcom.spec.ts

• Target URL: https://pewu.github.io/topola-viewer/#/view?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PeWu/topola-viewer/master/src/datasource/testdata/test.ged&indi=I1
• Expected name: Bonifacy (individual @I1@ in test.ged, line 16: 1 NAME Bonifacy /Gibbs/).
• What it exercises: GitHub Pages deployment, CORS proxy (topolaproxy.bieda.it), GEDCOM-from-URL loading. The app uses the CORS proxy by default for GEDCOM URLs (handleCors defaults to true — see src/util/url_args.ts:156).

Create: tests/probers/wikitree-cors-gedcom.spec.ts

• Target URL: https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/wiech13/topola-viewer/#/view?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PeWu/topola-viewer/master/src/datasource/testdata/test.ged&indi=I1
• Expected name: Bonifacy (same as above).
• What it exercises: WikiTree deployment, CORS proxy from the WikiTree domain. Even on apps.wikitree.com, GEDCOM-from-URL uses the CORS proxy by default (the handleCors hostname check in src/datasource/wikitree_api.ts:273 only affects WikiTree API calls, not GEDCOM URL fetches in src/datasource/load_data.ts:174). Note: probers do not block Google Analytics scripts, so live-URL prober runs generate real analytics events on each run. This is intentional — the prober tests the unmodified deployed app, and blocking analytics would not reflect the real user experience.

Create: tests/probers/docker.spec.ts

• Target URL: http://localhost:8080/ (local Docker container).
• Expected name: Bonifacy (same GEDCOM test file, mounted into the container via STATIC_URL=test.ged).
• What it exercises: Published Docker image from GHCR (multi-stage Dockerfile build output, Caddy server configuration, static URL template injection ({{ env "STATIC_URL" }} in index.html)), and app rendering with a pre-loaded GEDCOM.
• Note: The workflow pulls the Docker image published to GHCR (ghcr.io/pewu/topola-viewer:latest), runs it with docker run -p 8080:8080 -e STATIC_URL=test.ged, mounts src/datasource/testdata/test.ged into the container, and points Playwright at localhost:8080. The app loads in non-standalone mode (because staticUrl is set) and navigates directly to the chart view (see app.tsx routing logic). The Docker image does not include Google credentials (VITE_GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID, VITE_GOOGLE_API_KEY), so the Google Drive integration is non-functional in the containerized app. This is acceptable for the prober, which only tests chart rendering. Note: the Docker prober tests the image published to GHCR by deploy-docker.yml, ensuring the published artifact is functional.

Shared test structure (in each spec):

1. Navigate to the target URL.
2. Wait for #content to be visible. This indicates the app has reached
   `SHOWING_CHART` state and the React tree has rendered the chart
   container. Note: `#content` becomes visible *before* the D3 chart SVG
   is populated — the actual chart text is rendered by a `useEffect` in
   the `Chart` component that fires after `#content` appears. The
   subsequent `#chart` text assertion relies on Playwright's auto-wait
   to bridge this gap.
3. Assert expected name appears in #chart (chart SVG text).
4. Assert expected name appears in div.details (side panel).
5. Assert .ui.error.message is not visible (no fatal error).
6. Assert .ui.errorPopup.message is not visible (no popup error).

The .ui.errorPopup.message selector must be scoped at the document level (e.g., page.locator('.ui.errorPopup.message')), not scoped to #content, because ErrorPopup uses Semantic UI React's <Portal> which renders at document.body level.

Selectors are derived from the source code:

• #content — main container, visible when chart state is SHOWING_CHART (see src/pages/view_page.tsx:202).
• #chart — SVG group inside the chart (see src/chart.tsx:599).
• div.details — side panel Details tab content (see src/sidepanel/details/details.tsx:357).
• .ui.error.message — fatal error replacing the chart (see src/components/error_display.tsx, rendered when state is ERROR). The ui and message classes are added by Semantic UI React's <Message> component; the error class comes from the custom className="error" prop in ErrorMessage. The resulting DOM element is <div class="ui negative message error">, so the selector .ui.error.message matches it.
• .ui.errorPopup.message — dismissable popup error (see src/components/error_display.tsx). As above, ui and message come from Semantic UI React's <Message>, and errorPopup comes from the custom className="errorPopup" prop. Note: ErrorPopup uses Semantic UI React's <Portal>, which renders its content at document.body level, not inside #content in the DOM. When the popup is closed (open={false}), the Portal renders nothing, so this assertion verifies absence rather than visibility.

The side panel is expanded by default on desktop viewports (the prober project uses devices['Desktop Chrome']). The getShowSidePanel function in src/util/url_args.ts:177 returns true on non-mobile screens, so the div.details container is visible without any URL parameters.

Step 3: Prober GitHub Actions workflows

All prober workflows should declare minimal permissions for security:

permissions:
  contents: read
  actions: write

All prober workflows should use actions/checkout@v4 (not v2, which is used by some older deploy workflows).

All prober workflows should set timeout-minutes: 15 on each job to prevent hanging runs from consuming runner minutes (default GitHub Actions timeout is 6 hours).

All prober workflows should define a concurrency group to prevent overlapping runs (e.g., a deploy-triggered run overlapping with a schedule-triggered run):

concurrency:
  group: prober-${{ github.workflow }}
  cancel-in-progress: false

cancel-in-progress: false ensures a deploy-triggered run is not cancelled by a scheduled run — both complete independently.

Four reusable workflow files, one per prober. The three live-URL probers are identical in structure — only the name and artifact name differ. The Docker prober has a different structure (it builds and runs the container before testing).

Create: .github/workflows/prober-wikitree.yml

• Triggers: workflow_call (with wait_for_propagation input), workflow_dispatch (with wait_for_propagation input), schedule (daily at 0 5 * * * UTC = ~6:00/7:00 CET).
• Depends on (when called from deploy): deploy-wikitree-apps.yml only.
• Artifact name: prober-report-wikitree.

Create: .github/workflows/prober-gh-pages.yml

• Same structure.
• Depends on (when called from deploy): deploy-gh-pages.yml only.
• Artifact name: prober-report-gh-pages.

Create: .github/workflows/prober-wikitree-cors.yml

• Same structure.
• Depends on (when called from deploy): deploy-wikitree-apps.yml only.
• Artifact name: prober-report-wikitree-cors.

Create: .github/workflows/prober-docker.yml

• Triggers: workflow_call, workflow_dispatch, schedule (daily at 0 5 * * * UTC).
• Depends on (when called from deploy): deploy-docker.yml only.
• Artifact name: prober-report-docker.
• No wait_for_propagation input — The Docker container is available immediately after startup; no propagation delay is needed.

Shared workflow structure (live-URL probers):

1. Checkout repository (actions/checkout@v4).
2. Setup Node.js 24.x with npm cache.
3. Run npm ci.
4. If wait_for_propagation is true, sleep 180 seconds.
5. Get Playwright version (same pattern as node.js.yml: extract version
   from @playwright/test/package.json into a cache key).
6. Cache Chromium browser binaries (keyed by Playwright version). If cache
   misses, install Playwright with system dependencies
   (npx playwright install-deps chromium && npx playwright install
   chromium). With daily + post-deploy runs, caching avoids re-downloading
   ~150MB on every run.
7. Run: npx playwright test --config=playwright.prober.config.ts "${SPEC}"
   Each workflow sets a SPEC environment variable (e.g.,
   SPEC=wikitree.spec.ts) to select only the relevant spec file. Without
   this filter, Playwright would run all specs in the testDir for every
   prober workflow.
8. Upload Playwright HTML report as artifact (if: always()). Set
   PLAYWRIGHT_HTML_REPORT=playwright-report/prober to avoid path
   conflicts with other report artifacts. Set `retention-days: 30` to
   limit storage consumption — prober runs (daily + post-deploy) generate
   traces, screenshots, and videos that can accumulate quickly.

Docker prober workflow structure (different from live-URL probers):

1. Checkout repository (actions/checkout@v4).
2. Pull Docker image: docker pull ghcr.io/pewu/topola-viewer:latest
   (Pull the image published by deploy-docker.yml. This tests the actual
   published artifact, not a local build. The GHCR package is public, so
   no `docker login` authentication step is required.)
3. Run container: docker run -d -p 8080:8080 -e STATIC_URL=test.ged
   -v $(pwd)/src/datasource/testdata/test.ged:/app/public/test.ged
   --name topola-prober-${{ github.run_id }}
   ghcr.io/pewu/topola-viewer:latest
   (Use a unique container name with github.run_id to prevent name
   conflicts if a previous run didn't clean up or if runs overlap.)
4. Wait for container to be ready: use a bash retry loop with `curl` to
   poll `http://localhost:8080/` until it responds with HTTP 200
   (timeout 30s, 1s interval):
   ```bash
   for i in $(seq 1 30); do
     if curl -sf -o /dev/null http://localhost:8080/; then break; fi
     sleep 1
   done
   curl -sf -o /dev/null http://localhost:8080/

The final curl ensures the workflow fails with a clear error if the container never became ready. This prevents a race condition where the test runs before Caddy is ready to serve requests. 5. Setup Node.js 24.x with npm cache. 6. Run npm ci. 7. Get Playwright version (same pattern as node.js.yml). 8. Cache and install Playwright (same as live-URL probers). 9. Run: npx playwright test --config=playwright.prober.config.ts docker.spec.ts 10. Upload Playwright HTML report as artifact (if: always()). Set retention-days: 30 (same as live-URL probers). 11. Stop and remove container (if: always()): docker stop topola-prober-${{ github.run_id }} 2>/dev/null; docker rm topola-prober-${{ github.run_id }} 2>/dev/null; true (The if: always() ensures cleanup runs even on failure. The 2>/dev/null and trailing true prevent errors if the container was never started, e.g., pull failed at step 2.)

**`wait_for_propagation` input flag** (live-URL probers only):

* Defined under both `workflow_call` and `workflow_dispatch` triggers.
* Type: `boolean`, default: `false`.
* When invoked from `deploy-everywhere.yml`, passed as `true`.
* When triggered by schedule or manual (unchecked), defaults to `false`.
* The sleep step uses `if: inputs.wait_for_propagation` to conditionally
  execute.
* The Docker prober workflow does not define this input — the container is
  available immediately after `docker run`, so no propagation wait is needed.

### Step 4: Modify deploy-everywhere workflow

**Modify:** `.github/workflows/deploy-everywhere.yml`

Add four prober jobs that call the reusable prober workflows. Each prober
depends only on its relevant deploy job, not on all deploys.

Current state (before changes):

```yaml
jobs:
  deploy-gh-pages:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/deploy-gh-pages.yml
    secrets: inherit
  deploy-wikitree-apps:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/deploy-wikitree-apps.yml
    secrets: inherit
  deploy-docker:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/deploy-docker.yml
    secrets: inherit

After changes:

jobs:
  deploy-gh-pages:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/deploy-gh-pages.yml
    secrets: inherit
  deploy-wikitree-apps:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/deploy-wikitree-apps.yml
    secrets: inherit
  deploy-docker:
    uses: ./.github/workflows/deploy-docker.yml
    secrets: inherit

  prober-wikitree:
    needs: deploy-wikitree-apps
    uses: ./.github/workflows/prober-wikitree.yml
    secrets: inherit
    with:
      wait_for_propagation: true
  prober-gh-pages:
    needs: deploy-gh-pages
    uses: ./.github/workflows/prober-gh-pages.yml
    secrets: inherit
    with:
      wait_for_propagation: true
  prober-wikitree-cors:
    needs: deploy-wikitree-apps
    uses: ./.github/workflows/prober-wikitree-cors.yml
    secrets: inherit
    with:
      wait_for_propagation: true
  prober-docker:
    needs: deploy-docker
    uses: ./.github/workflows/prober-docker.yml
    secrets: inherit

Rationale for dependency mapping:

• prober-wikitree needs deploy-wikitree-apps — it tests the WikiTree deployment.
• prober-gh-pages needs deploy-gh-pages — it tests the GitHub Pages deployment.
• prober-wikitree-cors needs deploy-wikitree-apps — it tests the WikiTree deployment (with CORS proxy).
• prober-docker needs deploy-docker — it tests the Docker image published to GHCR by deploy-docker.yml (Dockerfile, Caddy config, app startup). It does not pass wait_for_propagation because the container is available immediately after docker run.
• If a prober fails, the deploy-everywhere workflow is marked as failed (red X), triggering an email notification (if GitHub email notifications are enabled — see note in Section 2).
• Note: Individual deploy workflows (deploy-gh-pages.yml, deploy-wikitree-apps.yml, deploy-docker.yml) also support workflow_dispatch. If a deploy is triggered directly (instead of through deploy-everywhere.yml), no probers run because probers are only called from deploy-everywhere.yml. To ensure probers always run after a deploy, always trigger deploys through deploy-everywhere.yml.

Step 5: Update supporting files

Modify: playwright.config.ts

Add testIgnore: ['*_visual.spec.ts', 'probers/**'] to the e2e project to prevent prober specs in tests/probers/ from being discovered by the regular CI e2e test run. Without this, npm run test:e2e would try to execute prober specs against the local dev server, causing failures.

Modify: package.json

Add a test:probers script for running probers locally during development:

"test:probers": "playwright test --config=playwright.prober.config.ts"

Modify: tests/tsconfig.json

Add probers/ to the include array so prober specs are type-checked by tsc -p tests/tsconfig.json --noEmit (which runs in CI via node.js.yml).

Current state:

{
  "compilerOptions": { ... },
  "include": ["./**/*.ts", "./**/*.d.ts"]
}

The existing ./**/*.ts glob already includes tests/probers/ — no modification needed. The ./**/*.d.ts glob covers type declaration files and does not affect prober spec discovery.

Modify: .github/workflows/README.md

Add entries for the four new prober workflows to the file registry, e.g.:

- [prober-wikitree.yml](prober-wikitree.yml): Reusable prober that
  smoke-tests the WikiTree direct API path on the live WikiTree deployment.
  Runs daily and after deploy.
- [prober-gh-pages.yml](prober-gh-pages.yml): Reusable prober that
  smoke-tests the GitHub Pages deployment with GEDCOM-from-URL through the
  CORS proxy. Runs daily and after deploy.
- [prober-wikitree-cors.yml](prober-wikitree-cors.yml): Reusable prober
  that smoke-tests the CORS proxy from the WikiTree deployment with
  GEDCOM-from-URL. Runs daily and after deploy.
- [prober-docker.yml](prober-docker.yml): Reusable prober that
  smoke-tests the published Docker image from GHCR (Dockerfile, Caddy
  config, app startup) by pulling and running it locally. Runs daily and
  after deploy.

Create: tests/probers/README.md

Document the prober test directory, explaining that these are live smoke tests (not hermetic), how to run them locally (npm run test:probers), and that they require network access to external services (WikiTree API, CORS proxy, GitHub raw URLs).

Modify: PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md

Add entries for the new tests/probers/ directory and playwright.prober.config.ts file.

Modify: docs/README.md

Add an entry for this design document to the registry:

* **[PROBERS_DESIGN.md](PROBERS_DESIGN.md)**: Live prober smoke tests
  against deployed GitHub Pages, WikiTree URLs, and local Docker container,
  covering WikiTree API, CORS proxy, GEDCOM-from-URL, and Docker build paths.

Summary of all files

File	Action	Purpose
playwright.prober.config.ts	Create	Separate Playwright config for probers (no local server, live URLs)
playwright.config.ts	Modify	Add testIgnore for probers/** to e2e project
package.json	Modify	Add test:probers script
tests/probers/wikitree.spec.ts	Create	WikiTree direct API smoke test
tests/probers/gh-pages-gedcom.spec.ts	Create	GitHub Pages + CORS proxy smoke test
tests/probers/wikitree-cors-gedcom.spec.ts	Create	WikiTree + CORS proxy smoke test
tests/probers/docker.spec.ts	Create	Docker container smoke test
.github/workflows/prober-wikitree.yml	Create	Reusable workflow: WikiTree prober
.github/workflows/prober-gh-pages.yml	Create	Reusable workflow: GH Pages prober
.github/workflows/prober-wikitree-cors.yml	Create	Reusable workflow: WikiTree CORS prober
.github/workflows/prober-docker.yml	Create	Reusable workflow: Docker prober (pulls GHCR image)
.github/workflows/deploy-everywhere.yml	Modify	Add prober jobs with targeted deploy dependencies
tests/tsconfig.json	Modify	Ensure prober specs are type-checked
tests/probers/README.md	Create	Document prober directory and usage
.github/workflows/README.md	Modify	Document new prober workflows
docs/README.md	Modify	Add prober design doc to registry
PROJECT_STRUCTURE.md	Modify	Add prober directory and config file

5. Future Considerations

WikiTree Login Flow Prober

The current WikiTree prober tests the unauthenticated API path (loading a public profile without an authcode). A future prober could test the authenticated login flow — logging in with an authcode and verifying that private profiles are accessible. This would require obtaining a dedicated test account on wikitree.com and storing the authcode as a GitHub Actions secret. This is deferred because it adds complexity (secret management, authcode expiry, test account maintenance) and the unauthenticated path already covers the most common deployment scenario.

Google Drive Integration Prober

A prober for the Google Drive integration (loading a GEDCOM file from Google Drive) is not included. Google's OAuth flow is designed for human interaction and includes bot detection (CAPTCHA, device verification) that would likely prevent automated login. Additionally, the Google Drive integration requires VITE_GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID and VITE_GOOGLE_API_KEY secrets, which are not available in the prober environment. A possible workaround would be to use a pre-authorized service account or a long-lived refresh token stored as a secret, but this is complex and fragile. This is deferred until a reliable automation approach is identified.