Recommended Tools
These MCP servers give your AI agent direct access to the browser and PHP runtime, making it significantly more effective at writing tests, debugging failures, and investigating issues.
Playwright MCP
Playwright MCP lets your agent control a real browser: navigate pages, read the accessibility tree, take screenshots, fill forms, and click elements. Essential for writing test packages and debugging test failures.
Your agent uses it to:
- Explore your extension's admin and frontend UI before writing tests
- Observe exact accessible names and page structure for reliable selectors
- Debug failing tests by navigating to the failing page and inspecting what's actually there
See Browser Observation for the detailed workflow.
Xdebug MCP
Xdebug MCP lets your agent do PHP step debugging conversationally: set breakpoints, step through code, inspect variables, and evaluate expressions. No IDE needed.
Your agent uses it to:
- Set breakpoints in plugin code and step through execution
- Inspect variable state at runtime to understand behavior
- Trace function calls to find where things go wrong
Pair it with QIT's built-in Xdebug support:
qit env:up --xdebug --plugin=your-extension
See Xdebug Debugging for environment setup and configuration.
How They Work Together
A typical AI-driven test development workflow uses all three tools:
- QIT CLI starts the environment and runs tests
- Playwright MCP observes the UI to discover selectors and verify behavior
- Xdebug MCP debugs PHP when something unexpected happens server-side
For example, when a test fails because checkout doesn't complete:
- Your agent uses Playwright MCP to navigate to checkout and see the current UI state
- If the UI looks correct but the order still fails, it uses Xdebug MCP to set a breakpoint in the payment processing code and step through it
- Once it finds the issue, it fixes the code and uses QIT CLI to re-run the test
This is the workflow described in detail in Writing Test Packages with AI.