Summary

Audited all 60 Playwright E2E spec files across 5 projects (git-mode, file-mode, single-file, no-git, multi-file). Found and fixed:

• Redundant tests: Removed file tree status/stats tests from loading.spec.ts that duplicated file-tree.spec.ts coverage (same assertions, same fixture)
• Anti-pattern: Replaced bare setTimeout(1500) in rendered-diff.filemode.spec.ts with a polling loop that waits for the file watcher to detect edits before triggering round-complete — follows the documented exception pattern (sleep inside retry loop)
• Type safety: Fixed any types in templates.spec.ts helper functions to use proper Page type from Playwright
• Misleading comment: Corrected comment on tautological assertion (>= 0) in rendered-diff.filemode.spec.ts to accurately describe why the assertion is weak

What the audit found was already good

The suite is generally well-structured. Most files properly use clearAllComments in beforeEach, import from ./helpers, follow naming conventions, and use Playwright auto-retrying assertions. The toPass() wrapper is correctly used where snapshot counts are needed inside retry loops. No truly dead tests were found.

Notable observations (not actionable in this PR)

• The accessibility.spec.ts dark theme contrast test has a waitForTimeout(100) that is pragmatically necessary for axe-core CSS propagation — no clean replacement exists
• settings-panel.filemode.spec.ts and theme.filemode.spec.ts are near-duplicates of their git-mode counterparts, but they exercise different server fixtures so removing them would reduce coverage
• Many .count() + expect(count).toBeGreaterThan(N) patterns exist but are preceded by toBeVisible() assertions that stabilize the DOM, making them low-risk

Test plan

• Full E2E suite passes (make e2e) — 554 tests across 5 projects