Future of `next-page-tester`

I open this issue to:

• update next-page-tester users about the maintenance status of this library
• announce that I will not be be able to actively maintain next-page-tester anymore

next-page-tester maintenance status

For about one year @Meemaw and I have developed and maintained next-page-tester. I started this library to explore an alternative testing approach with Next.js and @Meemaw brought in so many good ideas.

This testing approach proved to have pros and cons and enabled some valuable testing strategies. Since based on DOM testing, it proved to be able to cover a wide range of Next.js testing scenarios with the same tools used to test React component (eg. testing-library).

next-page-tester development/maintenance revealed to be quite problematic for a few reasons:

• It relies on a few Next.js internals which can change without notice in any moment. This means a lot of maintenance effort to align next-page-tester implementation with Next.js (and staying updated about Next.js internals evolution).

• It simplistically re-implements most of Next.js output (supported by TypeScript). This means any new Next.js feature has to be implemented/adjusted based on users’ feedback/issues

• There’s no way to know whether next-page-tester will be able to support future Next.js features/versions

• Since next-page-tester is not supported in any way by Next.js, it won’t be able to reach a significant degree of adoption (for good reasons)

For the reasons mentioned above next-page-tester is currently stuck over 2 major issues:

• ~#281~
• #268

Future of next-page-tester

During the last year I haven’t touched Next.js, and it’s getting hard to follow it’s evolution for the sole purpose of maintaining next-page-tester.

I’m convinced that the main downside of this project consists of its maintenance being 100% dependent of Next.js evolution. I personally came to the conclusion that the only viable solution is letting Vercel decide whether they want to invest on such a testing strategy and let them expose some Next.js bindings to enable DOM testing.

Beside the 2 issues mentioned above, there are new features waiting to be implemented which I couldn’t take care of.

In order to make further development easier I moved next-page-tester to a dedicated GitHub org. In the meanwhile @jasonwilliams joined maintainers team 🙌 .

I’m still providing support and sharing my project-specific knowledge to possible contributors.

I big hand up to all the contributors who spent time and love on this project. You proved that open source can be sustainable and human friendly sometimes! ❤️

[leerob]

I’d love to understand what hooks you’d need into Next.js to not have to rely on internals. Could you share more?

[toomuchdesign]

So the zero-creativity outcome would be: next-page-tester/next-page-tester. What about that? 😃