|
|
@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
|
|
|
+# Driving a Desktop App (Computer Use)
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+Drive the live app through its accessibility tree, not screen-pixel guesses,
|
|
|
+whenever an accessibility-driven tool is available. The worked example
|
|
|
+throughout is macOS accessibility automation (an app-state dump plus
|
|
|
+element-indexed click/type actions); the same dump-act-re-dump discipline
|
|
|
+applies to any platform's accessibility layer.
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+## Dump, act, re-dump
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+Before touching anything, pull a full app-state dump — the accessibility
|
|
|
+tree, not a screenshot. Read every element index and role off *that* dump;
|
|
|
+never guess or reuse an index from a previous dump, since insertions and
|
|
|
+removals renumber the tree.
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+```text
|
|
|
+get_app_state {app}
|
|
|
+click {app, element_index} # index/role read from the dump above
|
|
|
+type_text {app, text}
|
|
|
+get_app_state {app} # re-dump — did the field you predicted change?
|
|
|
+```
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+Re-dump after every action, not just at the end. An action without a
|
|
|
+following dump is a click you can't prove happened — you only have proof once
|
|
|
+you've read the state back and it shows the change.
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+## Quote the observed state into the record
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+The evidence is the before → after value read from the dump, quoted directly
|
|
|
+into the report or commit — not a description of the click. A counter that
|
|
|
+should now read a higher page, a selection whose label changed after a
|
|
|
+"next" action: put the literal *old value* and *new value* side by side so a
|
|
|
+reader can re-run the same action and check for the same transition. "I
|
|
|
+clicked the button" proves nothing; "field X read `A`, then `B`" is
|
|
|
+falsifiable.
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+## Isolate before you drive
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+Copy the built app to a throwaway location under a distinct bundle
|
|
|
+identifier and reset its permission grants before scripting it, so a driving
|
|
|
+session can't corrupt the real app's session state or permissions. Build any
|
|
|
+harness the driving needs outside the project's own repo — end-to-end
|
|
|
+driving should never mutate the project under test.
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+## The escalation ladder
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+Accessibility automation on a real desktop is not always available cleanly.
|
|
|
+Climb a ladder of approaches, and when a rung is blocked, record *why* before
|
|
|
+trying the next one:
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+1. **Scripting API** (e.g. an OS-level accessibility scripting bridge) — the
|
|
|
+ cheap default. Blocked signature: a permission error before any command
|
|
|
+ runs (no Accessibility grant).
|
|
|
+2. **UI-test harness** (a first-class automated-testing framework for the
|
|
|
+ platform) — the "proper" way to drive the real app end to end. Blocked
|
|
|
+ signature: the harness process itself never establishes its automation
|
|
|
+ session (e.g. an unsigned test runner killed before it attaches) — that's
|
|
|
+ the harness failing to bootstrap, not a bug in the app under test.
|
|
|
+3. **Raw input injection** (a coordinate-based click/keystroke tool plus a
|
|
|
+ screenshot after each action) — the fallback of last resort when both of
|
|
|
+ the above are blocked. Coarser than element-indexed driving, so screenshot
|
|
|
+ after every action and confirm the click landed on the intended window
|
|
|
+ before trusting the result.
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+Every rung you tried belongs in the report, including the ones that failed —
|
|
|
+not only the one that worked. Diagnose each blocked rung enough to state the
|
|
|
+failure cleanly (permission denied, session never attached, wrong window
|
|
|
+frontmost) before moving on; a rung abandoned without a stated reason is
|
|
|
+indistinguishable from one you never tried.
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+## A blocked ladder is a report, not an excuse
|
|
|
+
|
|
|
+If every rung is blocked, that is the result: write down what you tried, what
|
|
|
+each rung's failure looked like, and stop there. Never fall back to
|
|
|
+describing what the UI "should" do, and never fabricate a dump or a
|
|
|
+before/after value you didn't actually read back from the running app.
|