Playwright tests use POST endpoints

[arelra]

What does this change?

We wish to remove the GET endpoints from the prod server as they aren't used in production and we don't use them for manual testing.

Background

Prod

In production Frontend will POST a JSON payload to DCR to render.
In production no GET endpoints are used.

Dev

The dev server configures both GET and POST handlers for each endpoint.
The GET endpoints allow us to conveniently load any page in a browser with a GET request such as:

http://localhost:3030/Article/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/19/the-big-church-move-sweden-kiruna-kyrka

The GET endpoints will fetch the required payload from Frontend via the middleware getContentFromURLMiddleware and pass on to the normal rendering flow to render the page.

dotcom-rendering/dotcom-rendering/src/server/server.dev.ts

Lines 92 to 125 in 1957de2

	renderer.use(getContentFromURLMiddleware);
	renderer.get('/Article/*url', handleArticle);
	renderer.get('/AMPArticle/*url', handleAMPArticle);
	renderer.get('/Interactive/*url', handleInteractive);
	renderer.get('/AMPInteractive/*url', handleAMPArticle);
	renderer.get('/Blocks/*url', handleBlocks);
	renderer.get('/Front/*url', handleFront);
	renderer.get('/TagPage/*url', handleTagPage);
	renderer.get('/EmailNewsletters/*url', handleAllEditorialNewslettersPage);
	renderer.get('/AppsArticle/*url', handleAppsArticle);
	renderer.get('/AppsInteractive/*url', handleAppsInteractive);
	renderer.get('/AppsBlocks/*url', handleAppsBlocks);
	renderer.get('/EditionsCrossword/*url', handleEditionsCrossword);
	renderer.get('/FootballMatchListPage/*url', handleFootballMatchListPage);
	renderer.get('/FootballTablesPage/*url', handleFootballTablesPage);
	renderer.get('/CricketMatchPage/*url', handleCricketMatchPage);
	renderer.get('/FootballMatchSummaryPage/*url', handleFootballMatchPage);
	// POST routes for running frontend locally
	renderer.post('/Article', handleArticle);
	renderer.post('/AMPArticle', handleAMPArticle);
	renderer.post('/Interactive', handleInteractive);
	renderer.post('/AMPInteractive', handleAMPArticle);
	renderer.post('/Blocks', handleBlocks);
	renderer.post('/Front', handleFront);
	renderer.post('/TagPage', handleTagPage);
	renderer.post('/EmailNewsletters', handleAllEditorialNewslettersPage);
	renderer.post('/AppsArticle', handleAppsArticle);
	renderer.post('/AppsInteractive', handleAppsInteractive);
	renderer.post('/AppsBlocks', handleAppsBlocks);
	renderer.post('/EditionsCrossword', handleEditionsCrossword);
	renderer.post('/FootballMatchListPage', handleFootballMatchListPage);
	renderer.post('/FootballTablesPage', handleFootballTablesPage);
	renderer.post('/CricketMatchPage', handleCricketMatchPage);
	renderer.post('/FootballMatchSummaryPage', handleFootballMatchPage);

dotcom-rendering/dotcom-rendering/src/server/lib/get-content-from-url.ts

Lines 62 to 98 in 1957de2

	export const getContentFromURLMiddleware: Handler = async (req, res, next) => {
	if (req.path === '/EditionsCrossword') {
	try {
	const url = new URL(
	'https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/digital-edition',
	);
	const content = await getContentFromURL(url, req.headers);
	req.body = content;
	next();
	} catch (error) {
	console.error(error);
	next(error);
	}
	} else {
	const sourceURL = parseURL(req.originalUrl);
	if (sourceURL) {
	if (
	req.path.startsWith('/AMP') &&
	sourceURL.hostname === 'www.theguardian.com'
	) {
	res.redirect(
	req.path.replace(
	'www.theguardian.com',
	'amp.theguardian.com',
	),
	);
	}
	try {
	req.body = await getContentFromURL(sourceURL, req.headers);
	} catch (error) {
	console.error(error);
	next(error);
	}
	}
	next();
	}

Playwright

The Playwright tests use:

• the dev server for local testing
• the prod server in CI via the container we spin up in production mode

The Playwright tests (and previously Cypress) relied on the GET endpoints which offloaded the responsibility of fetching the Frontend JSON payload to DCR.

In order to remove the GET endpoints from the prod server, the Playwright tests now need to use the POST endpoints instead which are available on both the dev and prod servers.

This requires the Playwright utility load-page.ts to fetch the required content payload from Frontend itself and then POST to DCR.

Why?

Reduce prod server surface area

[github-actions]

Deploy build 44770 of Mobile::mobile-apps-rendering to CODE

All deployment options

• Deploy build 44770 of Mobile::mobile-apps-rendering to CODE
• Deploy parts of build 44770 to CODE by previewing it first
• What's on CODE right now?

---

From guardian/actions-riff-raff.

[github-actions]

Deploy build 20536 of dotcom:rendering-all to CODE

All deployment options

• Deploy build 20536 of dotcom:rendering-all to CODE
• Deploy parts of build 20536 to CODE by previewing it first
• What's on CODE right now?

---

From guardian/actions-riff-raff.

[gu-prout]

Seen on PROD (merged by @arelra 8 minutes and 44 seconds ago) Please check your changes!