When a browser test stops earning its place

A browser suite can accumulate tests that no longer protect a useful requirement. It can also contain valuable tests whose fixtures or locators need attention. Deleting both kinds indiscriminately loses the distinction, and so does keeping both out of habit.

For each troublesome test, I'd ask three questions.

What customer outcome does it verify? If you can't say in a sentence, that's your answer, or at least the start of one.

Have its recent failures been useful? Look at the last few. Did any point at a real problem? A test that has only ever failed for reasons unrelated to the product is costing you attention.

Who owns it? If nobody investigates when it goes red, it isn't protecting anything today, whatever it was written for.

From there:

• Redundant, because a lower-level test covers the same thing. Remove it. Lower-level tests usually explain failures more precisely anyway.
• Protects an important flow, but it's noisy. Keep the coverage and fix the source of noise, usually shared data or a timing assumption.
• Protects something nobody can explain. Ask around once, then remove it.

Reserve broad browser tests for journeys that need the application's pieces to work together. Those are the ones that are hard to replace, and the testing pyramid is a reasonable way to think about what belongs where.

This applies to any new tool too. If you try Zerocheck, start with a deliberate gap or a repeated manual flow, and keep the tests you already trust. A new way of writing tests should earn its place through useful results, not a larger test count.