Our take
Quietno commits in the last 90 days and no release in a year- Activity
- 19
- Community
- 69
- Issues
- 21
- Pull requests
- 20
+10 stars in the last 30 days
Shortest offers a distinctive way to author Playwright-backed tests, and its contributor base is not concentrated, but its recent quiet period makes release activity worth checking before adoption.
Good fit if
- Your team uses TypeScript and wants to express browser tests as natural-language instructions.
- You can use Anthropic's API and want Playwright-based execution with optional custom assertions.
- MIT licensing and a project with multiple contributors suit your adoption requirements.
Look elsewhere if
- You need a project with recent commits or releases: it has had no commits in the last 90 days and no release in over a year.
- Your test setup cannot depend on an Anthropic API key or a Node.js runtime.
- You need demonstrated recent issue or pull-request resolution, as none was recorded in the measured recent period.
All health signals
| Last commit | 2026-08-06 (2 months ago) |
|---|---|
| Commits, last 90 days | 0 |
| Releases, last 12 months | 0 (latest v0.4.9, 2025-04-01) |
| Contributors | 38 (top contributor: 41% of commits) |
| Issues closed, last 90 days | 0 |
| Pull requests merged, last 90 days | 0 |
| Project age | 2 years |
Checked on 2026-10-12 with the GitHub API.
Project history
Daily GitHub snapshots since Oct 7, 2026. History covers stars and forks; health signals are not tracked historically.
Stars
5,700Forks
340Change since Nov 14, 2026: 0 stars·0 forks
Overview
Shortest lets developers write end-to-end tests as instructions such as “Login to the app using email and password.” It uses Anthropic Claude to carry out those steps in a Playwright-controlled browser, aiming to make user-flow tests easier to express and maintain.
It is a Node.js tool for projects that can provide an Anthropic API key and a test environment. Tests can also include TypeScript callbacks for extra checks, and the framework supports API testing as well as browser flows.
Key Features
- Describe browser end-to-end tests in natural language.
- Use Anthropic Claude to interpret and execute test instructions.
- Run tests through Playwright, with configurable browser context options.
- Add callbacks and lifecycle hooks for custom assertions and setup or cleanup.
- Chain test steps and reuse flows across tests.
- Test API endpoints with request objects or natural-language instructions.
- Support GitHub login flows with two-factor authentication and email validation with Mailosaur.
Use Cases
- A frontend team can check sign-in and account-management flows without writing every browser interaction as Playwright commands.
- A developer can combine a natural-language browser journey with a database assertion in a callback when a UI action should persist application state.
- A team can run user-flow checks in CI in headless mode, provided it configures the Anthropic API key and test environment.
- Engineers can express API checks in natural language or attach a request object when validating endpoint behavior.
What you need
Detected in the repository
- Node.js (from package.json)
- Automated checks on GitHub Actions
License in plain words
MITpermissive
- Commercial use: yes
- Modify and redistribute: yes
- You must keep: the copyright and license notice
- Share your changes: no
A summary, not legal advice: the LICENSE file is what applies.
Getting Started
Run the initializer in a Node.js project:
npx @antiwork/shortest init
It sets up the package, a starter configuration, and environment placeholders. See the README for test examples, configuration, and CI setup.
Alternatives
| Project | Language | License | Stars | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| shortest | TypeScript | MIT | 5.7k | Quiet |
| selenium | Java | Apache-2.0 | 34.5k | Active |
| splinter | Python | BSD-3-Clause | 2.8k | Inactive |
Considerations
The project is marked Quiet by the measured health data: there have been no commits in the last 90 days, no releases in over a year, and no recorded recent issue closures or merged pull requests. That does not establish whether the code works for a particular project, but it makes checking current compatibility and maintenance status prudent. The repository reports 38 contributors and is not contributor-concentrated. The measured requirements list Node.js and CI support, but no test suite; the README also requires an Anthropic API key for AI test execution. No GPU or Docker requirement is listed.
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