Desktop Application Testing

Automation options

// Playwright + Electron
import { _electron as electron } from '@playwright/test';
const app = await electron.launch({ args: ['.'], env: { ...process.env, APP_ENV: 'test' } });
const win = await app.firstWindow();
await expect(win.getByRole('heading', {name: 'Projects'})).toBeVisible();
const isPackaged = await app.evaluate(({ app }) => app.isPackaged);
await app.close();

Desktop-specific checklist

• Install / upgrade / uninstall: clean VM snapshot; per-user vs all-users; silent flags (/S, msiexec /qn); PATH/registry/launch-agent entries; leftover files after uninstall; upgrade preserves settings; downgrade blocked or safe (installation-upgrade-testing).
• Signing & security: code-signed + notarized (macOS Gatekeeper spctl -a -vv), SmartScreen reputation, hardened runtime/entitlements; Electron: contextIsolation, nodeIntegration:false, CSP, no remote content w/ Node access, safe shell.openExternal.
• Auto-update: staged rollout, signature verification, rollback on failure, offline/blocked update server, delta updates, update while app running.
• OS integration: file associations, deep links/URI schemes, drag-and-drop, clipboard, tray/menu bar, notifications, autostart, single-instance lock, sleep/wake, lock screen, network change.
• Permissions: macOS TCC prompts (camera, mic, files, accessibility), Windows UAC/firewall, sandbox/entitlements; graceful denial.
• Display: HiDPI/scaling 100–300%, multi-monitor, dock/undock, window restore position, dark/light theme, high-contrast, font scaling.
• Filesystem: paths with spaces/unicode/long paths (>260 on Windows), network drives, read-only dirs, case sensitivity, permission denied, disk full, file locking, atomic saves & crash recovery (autosave).
• Performance/resources: cold start time, idle CPU/RAM (Electron baseline), memory growth over hours (memory-leak-resource-testing), battery impact, GPU fallback.
• Crash & telemetry: crash reporter (Sentry/Crashpad) uploads symbolicated dumps with consent; safe mode on repeated crash.
• Accessibility: screen readers (Narrator/NVDA/VoiceOver), keyboard-only, UIA/AX properties (accessibility-testing).
• Compat matrix: OS versions × architectures (x64/arm64/universal) × locales.

CI

Windows/macOS runners; xvfb on Linux (xvfb-run -a npm test); record video/trace on failure; test packaged build, not just dev mode.

Related

test-automation, installation-upgrade-testing, compatibility-testing, accessibility-testing, security-testing