Features

Skill 9 of 23

Clerk Testing

E2E testing for Clerk apps. Use with Playwright or Cypress for auth flow tests.

1 minute · 194 words · 8 sections

Install

$ npx skills add clerk/skills --skill clerk-testing

$ npx skills add clerk/skills

» /plugin marketplace add clerk/skills

The first command installs just this skill, by the name in its SKILL.md; the second installs the whole repository.

Testing

Decision Tree

Framework	Documentation
Overview	https://clerk.com/docs/guides/development/testing/overview (opens in a new tab)
Playwright	https://clerk.com/docs/guides/development/testing/playwright/overview (opens in a new tab)
Cypress	https://clerk.com/docs/guides/development/testing/cypress/overview (opens in a new tab)

Mental Model

Test auth = isolated session state. Each test needs fresh auth context.

clerkSetup() initializes test environment
setupClerkTestingToken() bypasses bot detection
storageState persists auth between tests for speed

Workflow

Identify test framework (Playwright or Cypress)
WebFetch the appropriate URL from decision tree above
Follow official setup instructions
Use development-instance keys only (pk_test_* / sk_test_*). If the project has no keys yet, npx clerk@latest init (the Clerk CLI; see clerk-setup) creates a Clerk application and writes development-instance keys to the env file. No Clerk account or Dashboard visit is needed.

Best Practices

Use setupClerkTestingToken() before navigating to auth pages
Use test API keys: pk_test_xxx, sk_test_xxx
Save auth state with storageState for faster tests
Use page.waitForSelector('[data-clerk-component]') for Clerk UI

Anti-Patterns

Pattern	Problem	Fix
Production keys in tests	Security risk	Use `pk_test_*` keys
No `setupClerkTestingToken()`	Auth fails	Call before navigation
UI-based sign-in every test	Slow tests	Use `storageState`

Framework-Specific

Playwright: Use globalSetup for auth state Cypress: Add addClerkCommands({ Cypress, cy }) to support file

About this skill

Allowed tools: WebFetch
Compatibility: Requires a publishable key and either CLERK_SECRET_KEY or CLERK_TESTING_TOKEN. Keys can be auto-generated by `clerk init` (temporary development keys, no Clerk account required), or pulled from the Clerk Dashboard.
Licence: MIT
Source: skills/features/clerk-testing/SKILL.md

Colophon for this issue

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How this issue was made

Source

github.com/clerk/skills, branch main, last pushed 22 September 2026.

Licence

Discovery

23 skills found by walking the repository tree for SKILL.md, not by matching a directory convention. 5 distinct layouts observed: .agents/skills/*/SKILL.md, skills/core/*/SKILL.md, skills/features/*/SKILL.md, skills/frameworks/*/SKILL.md, skills/mobile/*/SKILL.md.

Authorship

2 of 23 skills are installed into the repository rather than published from it. They are shelved in the closing “Credited skills” part and remain the work of their own authors. A skill counts as credited when its only copy lives under one agent’s dot directory; visible directories, per-agent mirror sets, and skills installable from this repository on skills.sh all count as published.

Issue colours

Resolved from the owner’s published design.md — hue 284°, chroma 0.190. Two accent tones are generated per issue and each is proven against its own ground before it ships: a single accent that passes AA on both light and dark paper is arithmetically impossible.

Typefaces

Display: Suisse Intl is not available to us; set in Inter.
Body: Suisse Intl is not available to us; set in Inter.
Mono: Söhne Mono is not available to us; set in JetBrains Mono.

We never load a typeface at request time from a third-party origin, so a brand face we do not already self-host is substituted rather than fetched.

Heading repairs

1 repair applied to this skill so the document has one h1 and no skipped levels:

Shifted “8 headings” from h1 to h2 so the skill title is the only h1.

Spec compliance

Every skill satisfies the Agent Skills specification’s frontmatter rules.

Images

Images inside a skill come from the upstream repository. Where the author gave no alternative text we mark the image decorative rather than inventing a description — a plausible caption we made up is worse than none for the reader who depends on it.

Marketplace

A plugin manifest is published at .claude-plugin/marketplace.json by Clerk, declaring 4 plugins. It is read for editorial metadata only — never as the skill index, which is always the repository tree.

Signal

Install counts come from skills.sh. They measure downloads, not quality, and an unranked repository is not an unread one.

Agent surfaces

The whole issue is available as one markdown document at /clerk/skills.md, and each skill at its own .md URL.

Publication

Set by Skills Docs from the source repository. Body text is Literata at the reader’s chosen size and measure; code is Geist Mono. Nothing on this page was written by us except this paragraph.

Testing

Framework

Documentation

Overview

https://clerk.com/docs/guides/development/testing/overview

Playwright

https://clerk.com/docs/guides/development/testing/playwright/overview

Cypress

https://clerk.com/docs/guides/development/testing/cypress/overview

Test auth = isolated session state. Each test needs fresh auth context.

clerkSetup() initializes test environment

setupClerkTestingToken() bypasses bot detection

storageState persists auth between tests for speed

Identify test framework (Playwright or Cypress)

WebFetch the appropriate URL from decision tree above

Follow official setup instructions

Use development-instance keys only (pk_test_* / sk_test_*). If the project has no keys yet, npx clerk@latest init (the Clerk CLI; see clerk-setup) creates a Clerk application and writes development-instance keys to the env file. No Clerk account or Dashboard visit is needed.

Use setupClerkTestingToken() before navigating to auth pages

Use test API keys: pk_test_xxx, sk_test_xxx

Save auth state with storageState for faster tests

Use page.waitForSelector('[data-clerk-component]') for Clerk UI

Pattern	Problem	Fix
Production keys in tests	Security risk	Use `pk_test_*` keys
No `setupClerkTestingToken()`	Auth fails	Call before navigation
UI-based sign-in every test	Slow tests	Use `storageState`

Playwright: Use globalSetup for auth state Cypress: Add addClerkCommands({ Cypress, cy }) to support file

clerk-setup - Install Clerk before adding tests

clerk-nextjs-patterns - Next.js patterns being tested

Demo Repo

Clerk Testing

Testing

Decision Tree

Mental Model

Workflow

Best Practices

Anti-Patterns

Framework-Specific

See Also

About this skill

Colophon

Clerk Testing

Testing

Decision Tree

Mental Model

Workflow

Best Practices

Anti-Patterns

Framework-Specific

See Also

About this skill

Colophon