Selectors That Survive the Next UI Update

What it is for

A hardening pass for UI selectors before an automation leaves your machine. It tells you which recorded attributes to delete, what to anchor to instead, and the three tests - different record, different window size, cold start - that expose a brittle selector while it is still cheap to fix. It prevents the automation that works perfectly in development and dies on the first real record.

The skill Copy

Before you call any UI automation finished, harden every selector it depends on.

1. Open each UI activity and read the selector it recorded. Delete every
   attribute the application generates rather than a developer authored:
   idx, ids that are a run of digits, window titles carrying a document
   name, a user name, a date, or a record number.
2. Keep only what a developer would have typed: automation id, name, control
   type, class, and aaname when it is a fixed label rather than data.
3. Where a row or a cell has nothing stable, anchor it to something that
   does - the column header, the field label, the section title - instead of
   its position on screen.
4. Replace the part that changes per record with a variable, and write in
   the activity's annotation what that variable is bound to.
5. Test on a different record. Not the same record twice. A selector tuned
   on one invoice number matches exactly one invoice.
6. Test with the window not maximised, and once at a different resolution
   or display scaling than the machine you built on.
7. Put a real timeout on every element you wait for, and decide per activity
   whether a miss means retry or stop. Default timeouts hide a slow screen
   until the day the server is slow.
8. Run the whole process twice end to end from a cold start, with the
   application closed beforehand and no leftover windows open.

The failure this prevents: an automation that passes every test on the
developer's machine and fails on the first production record, because the
selector memorised that record, that window size, or that logged-in user.

How to install it Copy

1. Open the tool and start a new conversation, project or template.
2. Paste the text below wherever the tool keeps standing instructions
   — usually called system prompt, instructions, or persona.
3. Save it so it applies to every run rather than a single message.

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Where it came from