Blog
Shipping safer releases
Practical notes on browser smoke tests, visual diffs, and free public tooling — published on a Tue/Thu cadence. RSS
Sep 2026 · 3 min
When to raise the visual diff threshold
0.10 is a starting point. Raise it for anti-aliasing, not for a layout bug you hope to ignore.
Sep 2026 · 4 min
Trigger a smoke test from CI without a dashboard login
A token, a URL, and a JSON body are enough to fail a pipeline when the smoke test fails.
Sep 2026 · 3 min
Read the console and network log after a failed step
A red step is the start of the report, not the end. Console errors and the failing request usually explain it.
Aug 2026 · 4 min
Smoke-test desktop, tablet, and mobile separately
A flow that passes at 1280px can still hide the button you need at 390px. Run the same URL in three viewports.
Aug 2026 · 4 min
Public quotas for free browser testing tools
Burst + daily limits that protect the free tier without killing honest use.
Aug 2026 · 3 min
Shareable test reports without accounts
Ephemeral share links, JSON export, and why bug reports should travel light.
Jul 2026 · 4 min
Safe form filling in automated smoke tests
Skip login and payment, fill the rest, and keep public tools from doing harm.
Jul 2026 · 4 min
Playwright on Vercel Hobby without OOM kills
Memory caps, video skip, and lighter crawls so serverless Chromium survives 1GB.
Jun 2026 · 1 min · Medium
Smoke-testing public sites without a CI bill
Paste a URL, get screenshots and a pass/fail report — no runners to babysit.
Jun 2026 · 4 min
Visual diffs without the flake tax
Pixel compares that stay useful: thresholds, anti-aliasing, and when not to fail the build.
Jun 2026 · 1 min · DEV
Plain-English browser tests on ShipCheck
How ShipCheck turns short instructions into real Chromium clicks and asserts.
Jun 2026 · 4 min
Catch broken flows before customers do
Why a free, no-signup browser smoke test beats hoping staging equals production.