Cursor
testing
E2E Tests Timing Out in Cursor-Generated Test Suites
End-to-end tests generated by Cursor using Playwright, Cypress, or Selenium time out during execution. Tests hang waiting for elements that never appear, pages that never load, or network requests that never complete. The tests work sometimes but fail intermittently, making your test suite unreliable and CI pipelines unpredictable.
E2E test flakiness is the number one reason teams abandon automated testing. Cursor generates tests that follow the happy path but don't account for the asynchronous, timing-dependent nature of real browser interactions. The AI writes selectors for elements that may not exist yet, clicks buttons before they're interactive, and asserts content that loads asynchronously.
The result is a test suite that passes locally (where the app is fast) but fails in CI (where resources are limited and the app is slower), or passes 80% of the time and fails randomly on the other 20%.
Error Messages You Might See
TimeoutError: Waiting for selector "button.submit" exceeded 30000ms
TimeoutError: page.waitForNavigation: Timeout 30000ms exceeded
Error: Element is not visible or not an HTMLElement
CypressError: Timed out retrying after 4000ms: Expected to find element: '[data-cy=result]'
Test timeout of 60000ms exceeded
Common Causes
- Static waits instead of dynamic waits — Cursor uses
await page.waitForTimeout(3000)instead of waiting for specific elements or conditions, which is both slow and unreliable - Fragile CSS selectors — Tests use selectors like
.sc-bdfBwQ.iQNHGt(auto-generated class names) that change every build, or deeply nested selectors that break with minor DOM changes - Missing API/network wait — The test clicks a submit button and immediately checks for a success message, without waiting for the API request to complete
- Element not interactable — The test tries to click an element that's rendered but covered by a modal, loading overlay, or tooltip
- CI environment is slower — Tests assume fast load times from local development. CI runners have less CPU/memory, making everything slower and timing-dependent tests fail
- Navigation not awaited — The test clicks a link that triggers navigation but checks for content before the new page loads
How to Fix It
- Use data-testid attributes — Add
data-testid="submit-button"to important elements and select withpage.getByTestId('submit-button'). These are stable across builds and style changes - Wait for specific conditions, not time — Replace
waitForTimeoutwithawait page.waitForSelector('[data-testid="success-message"]')or Playwright's auto-waiting assertions likeawait expect(page.getByText('Success')).toBeVisible() - Wait for network idle after actions — Use
await page.waitForLoadState('networkidle')orawait page.waitForResponse(url => url.includes('/api/submit'))after form submissions - Increase default timeout for CI — Set
timeout: 60000in your Playwright/Cypress config for CI environments while keeping shorter timeouts locally - Use Playwright's built-in auto-waiting — Playwright's
click(),fill(), andexpect()methods auto-wait for elements to be visible and interactive. Use these instead of manual waits - Add retry logic for flaky assertions — Use Playwright's
expect().toBeVisible({ timeout: 10000 })or Cypress's built-in retry-ability to handle timing variations
Real developers can help you.
Sage Fulcher
Hey I'm Sage! Im a Boston area software engineer who grew up in South Florida. Ive worked at a ton of cool places like a telehealth kidney care startup that took part in a billion dollar merger (Cricket health/Interwell health), a boutique design agency where I got to work on a ton of exciting startups including a photography education app, a collegiate Esports league and more (Philosophie), a data analytics as a service startup in Cambridge (MA) as well as at Phillips and MIT Lincoln Lab where I designed and developed novel network security visualizations and analytics. I've been writing code and furiously devoted to using computers to make people’s lives easier for about 17 years. My degree is in making computers make pretty lights and sounds. Outside of work I love hip hop, the Celtics, professional wrestling, magic the gathering, photography, drumming, and guitars (both making and playing them)
Kingsley Omage
Fullstack software engineer passionate about AI Agents, blockchain, LLMs.
Jacek Rozanski
Senior PHP/Symfony developer and DevOps engineer with 20+ years of professional experience, running opcode.pl (web development agency, est. 2004).
Day job: I'm the sole backend developer at merketing company where I own and maintain 11 PHP/Symfony microservices on AWS (ECS Fargate, RDS, S3, CloudFront), handle the full CI/CD pipeline (Bitbucket Pipelines, Docker), and manage monitoring with Sentry and CloudWatch. These services handle high request volumes in production every month.
What I bring to AI-built apps:
- I audit and fix security issues (OWASP methodology), performance bottlenecks, and architectural problems in codebases generated by Cursor, Claude Code, Lovable, Bolt, and v0
- I refactor AI-generated prototypes into production-grade applications with proper error handling, testing, and clean architecture (SOLID, DDD, hexagonal architecture)
- I set up the infrastructure AI tools don't touch: AWS hosting, CI/CD pipelines, automated deployments, database optimization, monitoring, and alerting
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Tech stack: PHP 8.x, Symfony, React, Next.js, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Docker, AWS (ECS, RDS, S3, SQS/SNS, CloudFront), Terraform, Supabase. I also use AI tools daily (Claude Code, Cursor) in my own workflow, so I understand both the strengths and the gaps in AI-generated code.
Based in Poland (CET timezone). Available for async work and calls during EU/US business hours.
Franck Plazanet
I am a Strategic Engineering Leader with over 8 years of experience building high-availability enterprise systems and scaling high-performing technical teams. My focus is on bridging the gap between complex technology and business growth.
Core Expertise:
🚀 Leadership: Managing and coaching teams of 15+ engineers, fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
🏗️ Architecture: Enterprise Core Systems, Multi-system Integration (ERP/API/ETL), and Core Database Structure.
☁️ Cloud & Scale: AWS Expert; architected systems handling 10B+ monthly requests and managing 100k+ SKUs.
📈 Business Impact: Aligning tech strategy with P&L goals to drive $70k+ in monthly recurring revenue.
I thrive on "out-of-the-box" thinking to solve complex technical bottlenecks and am always looking for ways to use automation to improve business productivity.
Jared Hasson
Full time lead founding dev at a cyber security saas startup, with 10 yoe and a bachelor's in CS. Building & debugging software products is what I've spent my time on for forever
Jen Jacobsen
I’m a Full-Stack Developer with over 10 years of experience building modern web and mobile applications. I enjoy working across the full product lifecycle — turning ideas into real, well-built products that are intuitive for users and scalable for businesses.
I particularly enjoy building mobile apps, modern web platforms, and solving complex technical problems in a way that keeps systems clean, reliable, and easy to maintain.
Alvin Voo
I’ve watched the tech landscape evolve over the last decade—from the structured days of Java Server Pages to the current "wild west" of Agentic-driven development. While AI can "vibe" a frontend into existence, I specialize in the architecture that keeps it from collapsing.
My expertise lies in the critical backend infrastructure: the parts that must be fast, secure, and scalable. I thrive on high-pressure environments, such as when I had only three weeks to architect and launch an Ethereum redemption system with minimal prior crypto knowledge, turning it into a major revenue stream.
What I bring to your project:
Forensic Debugging: I don't just "patch" bugs; I use tools like Datadog and Explain Analyzers to map out bottlenecks and resolve root causes—like significantly reducing memory usage by optimizing complex DB joins.
Full-Stack Context: Deep experience in Node.js and React, ensuring backends play perfectly with mobile and web teams.
Sanity in the Age of AI: I bridge the gap between "best practices" and modern speed, ensuring your project isn't just built fast, but built to last.
Tejas Chokhawala
Full-stack engineer with 5 years experience building production web apps using React, Next.js and TypeScript.
Focused on performance, clean architecture and shipping fast.
Experienced with Supabase/Postgres backends, Stripe billing, and building AI-assisted developer tools.
Nam Tran
10 years as fullstack developer
Richard McSorley
Full-Stack Software Engineer with 8+ years building high-performance applications for enterprise clients. Shipped production systems at Walmart (4,000+ stores), Cigna (20M+ users), and Arkansas Blue Cross. 5 patents in retail/supply chain tech. Currently focused on AI integrations, automation tools, and TypeScript-first architectures.
You don't need to be technical. Just describe what's wrong and a verified developer will handle the rest.
Get HelpFrequently Asked Questions
How do I make E2E tests less flaky?
Three key practices: 1) Never use fixed timeouts (waitForTimeout), always wait for specific conditions. 2) Use stable selectors (data-testid) instead of CSS classes or XPath. 3) Wait for network requests to complete before asserting results. Also run tests in a consistent environment with controlled test data.
Should I run E2E tests in CI on every commit?
Run fast unit tests on every commit. Run E2E tests on pull requests and before deployments. E2E tests are slow and resource-intensive, so running them on every commit slows down the feedback loop. Use parallelization and test sharding to speed them up when you do run them.