Authoring with windup new

You don’t have to write detailed tasks by hand. There are two ways to create a scenario without hand-writing JSON: describe it with windup new (below), or record it by demonstration.

The task and its final verification are the LLM’s best guess from your instruction and the site map — an LLM can pick a plausible-but-wrong destination. windup new steers the verification toward the instruction’s actual goal (a visible element/text over a guessed route) and recommends confirming with --validate (generate → run → self-refine until green) or a first windup run.

Give windup new a rough instruction and the LLM acts as a test author — it rewrites it into a precise, verifiable scenario using the site map (real screens, menus and elements from windup scan and past runs) and the project manifest (accounts referenced by name, never literal credentials):

npx windup new "log in with the qa user, add the backpack to the cart and check out"
# → e2e/scenarios/purchase-backpack-qa.json — real screen names, concrete fake
#   form data, account referenced as "the qa account", explicit final verification

It generates the scenario_id, picks the start_url from known routes (falling back to / — it never invents paths), and adds selector hints from the map when they help.

Validate as you author

Add --validate to have it run the generated scenario and, if it fails, refine it from the failure and retry (up to 3 attempts) — you get back a scenario that already passed once, with a warm cache:

npx windup new "log in and create a cost center named Marketing" --validate
#   attempt 1: FAIL — element button:has-text('Save') not visible
#   attempt 2: PASSED
#   ✓ validated in 2 attempts — the plan is cached

Credentials & output

Credentials in the instruction never land in the scenario file: they are auto-registered as a named account (values in .env.local, mapping in windup.credentials.json) and the task references the account — see Test credentials.

Flags: --id <id>, --force (overwrite), --depends-on <ids>, --llm <provider[:model]>. The output is a file for you to review, edit and commit — authoring is assisted, the test remains yours. One LLM call (~$0.001), recorded in the windup costs ledger under authoring.