Ws/appium service selector performance by wswebcreation · Pull Request #14980 · webdriverio/webdriverio

wswebcreation · 2026-01-03T13:16:15Z

Proposed changes

This pull request introduces Mobile Selector Performance Optimization and tracking features to the wdio-appium-service package. The changes add

a new service
a reporter reporter to collect selector performance data,
provide automatic optimization and suggest replacement of iOS XPath selectors,
extend configuration options for selector performance tracking.

These improvements aim to help users identify and replace slow/brittle iOS locators and selectors in their mobile test suites.

Selector Performance Tracking and Optimization:

Added a new reporter (mspo-reporter.ts) and shared store (mspo-store.ts) to collect test context and selector performance data, enabling detailed tracking of element-finding times and test context information.
Implemented selector optimization logic (optimizer.ts) and command overwrites (overwrite.ts) to automatically find and use optimized selectors (e.g., accessibility id, ios predicate string, class chain) instead of XPath, with performance comparison and fallback to original selectors if needed.

Dependency Updates:

Added @wdio/reporter as a dependency to support the new selector performance reporter.
Added @xmldom/xmldom and xpath for XML lookups

How to use

It can be used by adding this to the wdio-appium-service configuration

    services: [
        [
            'appium',
            {
                command: './node_modules/.bin/appium',
                args: {
                  // ......
                },
                /********
                 * NEW
                 ********/
                trackSelectorPerformance: {
                    enabled: true,
                    replaceWithOptimizedSelector: true,
                    enableMarkdownReport: true,
                    enableCliReport: true,
                    pageObjectPaths: ['./tests/pageobjects', './tests/screenobjects']
                },
            },
        ],
    ],

This can result in a CLI-report or a markdown report, see example below. It has been running against the wdio-native-demo-app

═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
📊 Mobile Selector Performance Optimizer Report
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

   Device: iPhone 14
   Run Time: 18:31:52 → 18:34:08 (2m 16s)
   Analyzed: 6 unique selectors (6 optimizable)
   Total Potential Savings: 10.54s per test run (7.8% of total run time)
   Average Improvement per Selector: 67.7% faster

📈 Summary
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   🔴 High (>50% gain):        6 → Fix immediately

🎯 File-Based Fixes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   Update these specific lines for immediate impact:

   📁 /Users/wimselles/Git/wdio/appium-boilerplate/tests/screenobjects/LoginScreen.ts
            L4: $('//*[@name="Login-screen"]') → $("~Login-screen")
                ⚡ 1649.9ms/use × 2 uses = 3.30s total
            L13: $('//*[@name="button-login-container"]') → $("~button-login-container") [2102.1ms]
            L20: $('//*[@name="button-biometric"]') → $("~button-biometric") [742.0ms]
      └─ File total: 6.14s saved (3 selectors)

   📁 /Users/wimselles/Git/wdio/appium-boilerplate/tests/screenobjects/components/TabBar.ts
            L3: $('//*[@name="Home"]') → $("~Home")
                ⚡ 868.1ms/use × 2 uses = 1.74s total
            L11: $('//*[@name="Login"]') → $("~Login")
                ⚡ 654.1ms/use × 2 uses = 1.31s total
      └─ File total: 3.04s saved (2 selectors)

   📁 /Users/wimselles/Git/wdio/appium-boilerplate/tests/screenobjects/components/NativeAlert.ts
            L8: $('//XCUIElementTypeAlert') → $("-ios predicate string:type == 'XCUIElementTyp...")
                ⚡ 675.5ms/use × 2 uses = 1.35s total
      └─ File total: 1.35s saved (1 selector)

💡 Why Change?
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   • Speed: Native selectors bypass expensive XML tree traversal
   • Stability: Less affected by UI hierarchy changes
   • Priority: ~accessibilityId > -ios predicate string > -ios class chain > //xpath
   • Docs: https://webdriver.io/docs/selectors#mobile-selectors
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
📝 Mobile Selector Performance Optimizer - Markdown Report
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   📁 Markdown report written to: /Users/wimselles/Git/wdio/appium-boilerplate/logs/mobile-selector-performance-optimizer-report-iphone_14-1769276066643.md
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────


═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════
📊 Mobile Selector Performance Optimizer Report
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

   Device: iPhone Simulator
   Run Time: 18:31:53 → 18:33:53 (2m 0s)
   Analyzed: 6 unique selectors (5 optimizable, 1 not recommended)
   Total Potential Savings: 9.31s per test run (7.7% of total run time)
   Average Improvement per Selector: 71.5% faster

📈 Summary
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   🔴 High (>50% gain):        5 → Fix immediately
   ⚠️  Slower in Testing:      1 → See warnings below

🎯 File-Based Fixes
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   Update these specific lines for immediate impact:

   📁 /Users/wimselles/Git/wdio/appium-boilerplate/tests/screenobjects/components/TabBar.ts
            L3: $('//*[@name="Home"]') → $("~Home")
                ⚡ 1565.2ms/use × 2 uses = 3.13s total
            L11: $('//*[@name="Login"]') → $("~Login")
                ⚡ 787.6ms/use × 2 uses = 1.58s total
      └─ File total: 4.71s saved (2 selectors)

   📁 /Users/wimselles/Git/wdio/appium-boilerplate/tests/screenobjects/LoginScreen.ts
            L4: $('//*[@name="Login-screen"]') → $("~Login-screen")
                ⚡ 1290.6ms/use × 2 uses = 2.58s total
            L13: $('//*[@name="button-login-container"]') → $("~button-login-container") [745.2ms]
            L20: $('//*[@name="button-biometric"]') → $("~button-biometric") [1280.2ms]
      └─ File total: 4.61s saved (3 selectors)

⚠️  Performance Warnings
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   Native selectors were SLOWER than XPath for these cases.
   This can happen due to app-specific optimizations, element hierarchy,
   caching effects, or Appium/driver version differences.
   Recommendation: Keep using XPath for these selectors.

   📍 /Users/wimselles/Git/wdio/appium-boilerplate/tests/screenobjects/components/NativeAlert.ts:8
            XPath:  $('//XCUIElementTypeAlert') → 788ms
            Native: $('-ios predicate string:type == 'XCUIEleme...') → 1391ms
                    ❌ Native was 603ms slower (77%)

💡 Why Change?
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   • Speed: Native selectors bypass expensive XML tree traversal
   • Stability: Less affected by UI hierarchy changes
   • Priority: ~accessibilityId > -ios predicate string > -ios class chain > //xpath
   • Docs: https://webdriver.io/docs/selectors#mobile-selectors
═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
📝 Mobile Selector Performance Optimizer - Markdown Report
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
   📁 Markdown report written to: /Users/wimselles/Git/wdio/appium-boilerplate/logs/mobile-selector-performance-optimizer-report-iphone_simulator-1769276066643.md
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Markdown report examples

mobile-selector-performance-optimizer-report-iphone_14-1769276066643.md
mobile-selector-performance-optimizer-report-iphone_simulator-1769276066643.md

TODO:

refactor code, this is a mess ATM
Check Android
Be able to run this with a cloud vendor, now it's only focussed on local excecution
Create a Markdown file report
Add docs

Types of changes

Polish (an improvement for an existing feature)
Bugfix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
Breaking change (fix or feature that would cause existing functionality to not work as expected)
Documentation update (improvements to the project's docs)
Specification changes (updates to WebDriver command specifications)
Internal updates (everything related to internal scripts, governance documentation and CI files)

Checklist

I have read the CONTRIBUTING doc
I have added tests that prove my fix is effective or that my feature works
I have added the necessary documentation (if appropriate)
I have added proper type definitions for new commands (if appropriate)

Further comments

Reviewers: @webdriverio/project-committers

pkg-pr-new · 2026-01-03T13:18:17Z

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commit: bd2c019

packages/wdio-appium-service/src/mobileSelectorPerformanceOptimizer/aggregator.ts

packages/wdio-appium-service/src/mobileSelectorPerformanceOptimizer/markdown-formatter.ts

Winify · 2026-01-31T14:42:56Z

@wswebcreation Would it not be possible to include a pre-curated .snapshot() as a webdriverio API?

You are already doing optimisation, so its a safe guess from me that you "already know" the better selectors of a element, that is why you could determine an "optimal" list of elements

EDIT: This may not be this PR's responsibility, as I would image the same process could be used for browser instances as well

- add more logs for debugging - add logs for the action that is executed - improve element selection

- different logging for silent or else - add indentation to make it "more readable"

- removed element action logic, will implement that later

- add new options called : - enableReporter - reportPath - maxLineLength - throw proper error when the options are not correct/set - removed reporter logic from the service, it's now fully handled by the reporter file itself - properly handle how a reporter should log data - optimize code a bit

- some small refactors

- before and afterCommand will be tested separately

- optimize code a bit

- made usePageSource default

- update docs - update tests

- update docs - update uts

- updated docs - updated tests - small refactor of tests

…ing or encoding Co-authored-by: Copilot Autofix powered by AI <62310815+github-advanced-security[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

…ector-performance

dprevost-LMI reviewed Jan 3, 2026

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packages/wdio-appium-service/src/mobileSelectorPerformanceOptimizer/markdown-formatter.ts Fixed Show fixed Hide fixed

wswebcreation mentioned this pull request Jan 31, 2026

feat: Robust XPath selector for mobile elements and Locators' structure refactor webdriverio/mcp#20

Merged

10 tasks

wswebcreation marked this pull request as ready for review February 1, 2026 05:41

wswebcreation added 24 commits February 1, 2026 06:55

chore: initial setup for collecting timings

16d21c8

feat: initial setup for measuring selector performance

424c244

feat: add the xpath conversion and separate it

37111d7

feaT: now use the page src for querying the code

cb450f4

chore: refactor

470c967

feat: only track if we are in native context

90d8157

feat: debugging and element actions

fccd989

- add more logs for debugging - add logs for the action that is executed - improve element selection

chore: improved elementCommand logic

d5b664c

chore: improved logs a bit

7e76ff4

- different logging for silent or else - add indentation to make it "more readable"

chore: tweaked log for readability

25e76b5

- removed element action logic, will implement that later

feat: add a reporter to have the correct details in the terminal

f0e142f

fix: fix reporter and streamlined the terminal report

6ffe5cb

chore: add logs iOS only and Beta

7339bc6

- some small refactors

test: added service tests

1c3be55

- before and afterCommand will be tested separately

test: add overwrite tests

9dfbf1e

- optimize code a bit

test: add beforeCommand tests

2a33521

test: add afterCommand tests

2613cc9

chore: refactor tests

fc512aa

test: add tests for the reporter

ac45ac1

test: add store tests

c328465

chore: small refactors

c09e530

feat: add docs

c5cf3a7

chore: some refactoring

c5b7d83

wswebcreation and others added 14 commits February 1, 2026 07:02

chore: fix selector length in markdown report

805afe9

Chore: optimize markdown

dd45c2a

test: add snapshots

6c9a24c

chore: refactor types

3f763f8

chore: update the docs

e9cf1b1

feat: support parallel runs

0e0f812

feat: optimized xpath lookup

5c05697

- made usePageSource default

feat: default to always replace the optimized selector

92c0168

- update docs - update tests

feat: make pageObjectPaths mandatory

f4e2fc3

- update docs - update uts

chore: also add UTs

005b1fa

feat: removed enabled as an prop

3e40c79

- updated docs - updated tests - small refactor of tests

chore: fix linting

a168ed4

Potential fix for code scanning alert no. 87: Incomplete string escap…

a2e3f77

…ing or encoding Co-authored-by: Copilot Autofix powered by AI <62310815+github-advanced-security[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

chore: remove some comments

ef5a135

wswebcreation force-pushed the ws/appium-service-selector-performance branch from ae1be35 to ef5a135 Compare February 1, 2026 06:06

wswebcreation added 8 commits February 1, 2026 07:07

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into ws/appium-service-sel…

09d79be

…ector-performance

Merge branch 'main' into ws/appium-service-selector-performance

d707625

fix: fix lock file

6d51220

Merge branch 'main' into ws/appium-service-selector-performance

53f773b

Merge branch 'main' into ws/appium-service-selector-performance

37aabb4

chore: fix UT's

85a340b

chore: fix last UTs

e0fddeb

Merge branch 'main' into ws/appium-service-selector-performance

e61b557

Winify mentioned this pull request Feb 5, 2026

WebdriverIO v10 Wish List #14959

Open

2 tasks

wswebcreation added 2 commits February 8, 2026 06:43

Merge branch 'main' into ws/appium-service-selector-performance

bd2c019

Merge branch 'main' into ws/appium-service-selector-performance

8a0f5e5

wswebcreation merged commit 3d65e98 into main Feb 10, 2026
60 of 61 checks passed

wswebcreation deleted the ws/appium-service-selector-performance branch February 10, 2026 05:55

wswebcreation added PR: New Feature 🚀 PRs that contain new features PR: Polish 💅 PRs that contain improvements on existing features labels Feb 10, 2026

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Ws/appium service selector performance#14980

Ws/appium service selector performance#14980
wswebcreation merged 64 commits intomainfrom
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Proposed changes

How to use

Markdown report examples

TODO:

Types of changes

Checklist

Further comments

Reviewers: @webdriverio/project-committers

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