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Roadmap

This page tracks what is still missing to reach the native-agent architecture goal:

Simple Playwright-style test API
  -> Astur core
  -> Astur platform driver
  -> persistent native platform agent
  -> UiAutomator / XCUITest

Implemented

Section titled “Implemented”
  • Flutter on iOS through the XCUITest accessibility tree (shared demo suite: 6/9 specs on the simulator), with an agent-side substring fallback over Flutter’s merged accessibility labels.
  • WebView DOM control via device.webContext() — an engine-agnostic, inject-JS-over-evaluate bridge driving Flutter and React Native WebViews. Android (Chromium/CDP) and iOS simulator + real devices (WKWebView via ios-webkit-debug-proxy) are supported; the inspector splices the WebView DOM into the UI tree with real locators + fill/tap.
  • Android and iOS agents return structured timing and failure diagnostics through the shared protocol.
  • Actionability failures include selector, candidate snapshot, and visible/enabled/hittable/stability state where the platform exposes it.
  • Host-side AsturError keeps native-agent timing and diagnostics instead of dropping them at the transport boundary.
  • A manual self-hosted native smoke workflow enforces required-agent paths for Android, iOS simulator, and signed real iOS hardware.

Still Missing

Section titled “Still Missing”
  • iOS Simulator WebView DOM needs a direct webinspectord_sim client — ios-webkit-debug-proxy bridges physical devices only, so device.webContext() on a simulator currently reports IOS_WEBVIEW_PROXY_NO_DEVICES.
  • Flutter iOS drag-and-drop: only the first synthetic XCUITest drag in a sequence registers with Flutter’s pan recognizer; a multi-step drag injector (real motion events) is needed for parity with the Android Dart VM driver.
  • Default hosted CI cannot run real mobile hardware. Signed iOS and physical Android smoke jobs require self-hosted runners with the matching device labels.
  • Deeper strict-locator reporting, including ranked candidate lists for every selector strategy, is still being expanded.
  • Richer device-pool scheduling for cloud/device-farm targets is still planned.
  • Real iOS Inspector/codegen needs a compact native-tree stream so broad XCTest snapshots do not block the live tree on larger screens.
  • Fluent relative/filter locators (.filter({ hasText, has }), .nth/.first/.last, .locator(child)) are not implemented yet. Anchored matching today is written manually via device.tree() + flattenTree + bounds geometry.
  • No raw native selector escape hatch for cases the semantic-tree match cannot express (iOS NSPredicate / class chain, Android UiSelector child/descendant chains). The xpath strategy is currently reserved and throws on both platforms, so it is not a usable fallback today.

Next Best Steps (In Order)

Section titled “Next Best Steps (In Order)”
  1. Agent diagnostics and parity
  • Keep Android/iOS protocol result shapes aligned and contract-tested.
  • Expand candidate diagnostics for complex selectors without making normal actions pay for full-tree dumps.
  1. Atomic interaction path polish
  • Keep find + wait + action in one native command path on both platforms.
  • Expand role and control coverage for widgets such as sliders, media pickers, and alerts.
  1. Parallel execution
  • Continue expanding device pools so loose selectors can distribute workers across local and remote devices automatically.
  • Keep cross-platform projects isolated by device id and artifact directory.
  1. Reliability and telemetry
  • Surface command timing and trace metadata consistently in reports so flaky runs identify whether delay was host transport, native lookup, app rendering, or action execution.
  • Add Inspector-specific timing for screenshot refresh, tree refresh, hit testing, and recording actions.
  1. CI enforcement and migration
  • Keep the required-agent smoke workflow green on self-hosted Android/iOS runners.
  • Keep fallback paths for local development until agent suites are stable enough to make the agent path mandatory everywhere.
  1. Locator ergonomics
  • Add a fluent relative API on MobileLocator (.filter({ hasText, has }), .nth/.first/.last, .locator(child)) implemented against the cached semantic tree, so anchored locators no longer need manual flattenTree + geometry. Higher leverage, no native change required.
  • Add an opt-in raw escape hatch (by.native({ ios, android })) routed straight to the agents — NSPredicate / class chain on iOS, UiSelector on Android — for the rare case the tree match cannot express. Decide whether to finish or formally drop the reserved xpath strategy as part of this.

End-User Experience Goal

Section titled “End-User Experience Goal”

The test API should stay simple:

await device.getByRole('button', { name: 'Sign in' }).tap();
await expect(device.getByText('Welcome')).toBeVisible();

All transport, waiting, actionability, and platform complexity should remain in the runtime and native-agent layers.

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