sentinel-agent 0.1.0a1

AI-driven functional testing agent. Point it at a URL; it explores the app, generates a test plan, runs it, and reports findings. Web + visual regression + accessibility in v0.1; API + mobile in later versions.

Sentinel

Point it at a URL. It explores the app, generates a test plan, runs it, and reports findings. Web + visual regression + accessibility in v0.1; API + mobile in later versions.

Status: alpha, live on PyPI as sentinel-agent==0.1.0a1. Web + visual regression + accessibility ship today. API testing in v0.1.0a2; mobile (React Native) in v0.1.0a3.

Install: pip install sentinel-agent · Repo: GitHub · Issues: file one

What it does

Point Sentinel at a URL:

sentinel run https://your-app.com

In one command, the agent:

1. Opens the URL in headless Chromium
2. Reads the rendered HTML + visible text
3. Asks the LLM to generate a focused test plan (2-5 scenarios, 3-8 steps each)
4. Runs the plan in fresh browser sessions per scenario
5. Captures screenshots and compares against baselines (visual regression)
6. Scans each page state for WCAG 2.1 AA violations (axe-core)
7. Reports findings: failed scenarios, visual diffs, accessibility issues, with cost

Why this exists

The same teams that need Cascade (meeting-to-PR) and Relay (issue-to-PR) need a way to verify that the PRs those agents produce actually work. Hand-writing Playwright tests for every feature is the bottleneck. Sentinel removes the bottleneck: generate tests with the same LLM that writes the code.

Sentinel sits next to Cascade and Relay as the third ThinkNext open-source product. Shared internals (LLM clients, error types) come from cascade-agent.

Install

pip install sentinel-agent

# One-time: install the Chromium binary Playwright needs
playwright install chromium

Configure

# Reuses cascade-agent's credentials; configure once for all three products
cascade configure llm anthropic --key sk-ant-xxx --set-default

If you want a project-local config (highly recommended; lets you set viewport, baseline directory, accessibility thresholds):

sentinel init

This scaffolds sentinel.yaml with sensible defaults you can edit.

Run

sentinel run https://cascadeagent.dev

# Output (truncated):
#   ✓  3/3 scenarios passed, 0 visual diff(s), 2 a11y violation(s)
#
#   ✓  Homepage loads and primary CTA is visible  (1.42s)
#   ✓  Get-started link navigates to /getting-started/  (1.83s)
#   ✓  Docs sidebar contains all expected sections  (2.10s)
#
#   Accessibility violations:
#     [moderate] color-contrast: Elements must meet minimum color contrast...
#       sample: .text-slate-500
#       (3 node(s) affected)
#     [minor] image-alt: Images must have alt text...
#       sample: img.hero-illustration
#       (1 node(s) affected)
#
#   cost:    $0.04 (5,210 in / 980 out tokens)

What ships in v0.1.0a1

Capability	Status	Module
Web testing via Playwright	✅	sentinel.browser, sentinel.runner
LLM-driven test plan generation	✅	sentinel.planner
Visual regression (PIL pixel diff)	✅	sentinel.visual
Accessibility scan (axe-core 4.10)	✅	sentinel.a11y
Multi-page exploration	🚧 v0.1.0a2	(plans are single-URL today)
API contract testing (OpenAPI)	🚧 v0.1.0a2
Self-healing tests (re-plan on failure)	🚧 v0.1.0a2
Mobile (React Native via Detox)	🚧 v0.1.0a3

How it differs from existing tools

	Playwright Codegen	Pytest + Playwright	Percy / Chromatic	Sentinel
Generates tests from a URL	partial (record/replay)	❌	❌	✅
Self-hosted	✅	✅	❌	✅
Bring your own LLM	n/a	n/a	n/a	✅
Visual regression	❌	❌	✅	✅
Accessibility scan	❌	partial (plugin)	❌	✅
Open source	✅	✅	❌	✅

Sentinel is for teams who want test coverage without spending the engineering hours to author it. The trade-off is that AI-generated tests have failure modes hand-written tests do not (e.g. an LLM picks a fragile selector). The self-healing v0.1.0a2 feature is the answer to that.

Configuration

sentinel.yaml (after sentinel init):

version: 1

agent:
  provider: anthropic
  model: claude-opus-4-7
  temperature: 0.2

browser:
  headless: true
  viewport_width: 1280
  viewport_height: 720
  timeout_ms: 30000

visual:
  enabled: true
  baseline_dir: sentinel-baselines
  diff_threshold_percent: 0.5

a11y:
  enabled: true
  fail_on:
    - critical
    - serious

Architecture

   sentinel run <url>
          │
          ▼
   ┌──────────────┐
   │ explore page │  Playwright opens URL, grabs HTML + visible text
   └──────┬───────┘
          │
          ▼
   ┌──────────────┐
   │   planner    │  LLM produces TestPlan (2-5 scenarios, 3-8 steps each)
   └──────┬───────┘
          │
          ▼
   ┌──────────────┐
   │    runner    │  Fresh browser session per scenario
   │              │  Each step is one Playwright action
   │              │  screenshot steps → visual regression check
   │              │  a11y_scan steps → axe-core injection
   └──────┬───────┘
          │
          ▼
   ┌──────────────┐
   │ SentinelReport │  Scenarios + visual diffs + a11y violations + cost
   └──────────────┘

Roadmap

Version	Status	Highlights
v0.1.0a1	Shipped (2026-05-26)	Web testing, visual regression, accessibility
v0.1.0a2	Planned	Multi-page exploration, self-healing tests, API contract testing
v0.1.0a3	Planned	Mobile (React Native via Detox or Maestro)
v0.2	Q4 2026	CI integration (GitHub Actions / GitLab CI / Bitbucket / Azure), parallel execution
v1.0	Mid-2027	Stable API, full coverage of web + API + mobile + visual + a11y, baselined

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

About

Built and maintained by ThinkNext Software Solutions, alongside our other open-source projects Cascade (meeting-to-PR) and Relay (issue-to-PR).

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