Product-docs screenshots

Screenshots in product-docs/ are generated, not taken by hand. One command rebuilds the demo database, starts the stack, and re-captures every shot. The fixture is deterministic, so every DOM-only capture reproduces byte for byte and a diff means the UI changed. Chart captures can drift by a few antialiased pixels without a UI change — compare those with a small pixel threshold.

Never paste a hand-captured screenshot into product-docs/. If an image is needed, add it to the manifest so the next person can regenerate it.

Two modes

Attach mode is the normal path for documenting a feature that was just built. It captures against the stack the developer already has running, using the data they built the feature against — no seeding, seconds rather than minutes:

DOCS_SHOTS_BASE_URL=http://localhost:5173 \
  ./tests/docs-screenshots/run.sh --attach -- --grep my-new-shot

It refuses to run without an explicit DOCS_SHOTS_BASE_URL and an explicit --grep. Both guards exist because it writes directly into product-docs/.gitbook/assets/, and a bare run would replace every committed screenshot with images of whatever happened to be listening on that port.

Fixture mode (the default when no flag is given) rebuilds the demo database and starts its own stack. It backs the core pages that need to stay regenerable, and it is how a stale screenshot gets refreshed years later. Do not extend the fixture just to document a new feature — attach instead.

Screening a dev-database screenshot

A dev database usually holds real customer and prospect data. Before a shot captured in attach mode goes into product-docs/, read it and check for:

• customer, prospect or partner names in any list, breadcrumb or domain column
• real people's names or email addresses (including the signed-in user, bottom left of the sidebar)
• imported spreadsheet content, entity names, or anything from a real engagement
• TEST- prefixed junk from the populate_* commands, half-finished records

If any of it is there, do not ship the image. Either re-capture against a clean domain, or use fixture mode. Published GitBook pages are public.

The loop

Work through these in order. Do not skip step 5.

1. Find the doc page

Locate the page under product-docs/ and check SUMMARY.md — GitBook only renders pages listed there. Read the page first and pick the section the image belongs to; a figure at the top of a concept page is usually the wrong place.

2. Pick the mode

For a feature that was just built, use attach mode against the developer's running stack — that is where the feature's data already exists. Ask which URL and which records to shoot; do not guess a port.

Use fixture mode when the page is one of the core pages already backed by seed_docs_demo (domains, perimeters, assets, applied controls, audits, risk assessments), or when refreshing a stale screenshot.

Only extend backend/core/management/commands/seed_docs_demo.py if the user asks for a screenshot that must stay regenerable. It is not a prerequisite for documenting a new feature. If extending it, follow the conventions in the file:

• seed the RNG (random.seed(SEED)) and use a fixed vocabulary
• derive dates from TODAY, never date.today()
• add the new model to freeze_timestamps with both a scope filter (this is a management command; it must never rewrite timestamps outside the fixture) and an explicit natural sort key

There are populate_* management commands for several modules, but they do not seed the RNG, so their output is different on every run. Do not call them from the screenshot path without fixing that first.

3. Add a manifest entry

In frontend/tests/docs-screenshots/manifest.ts:

{
  slug: 'audit-detail',              // → product-docs/.gitbook/assets/audit-detail.png
  url: '/compliance-assessments',
  usedBy: ['concepts/audits.md'],    // so a stale shot is traceable to its pages
  act: openDetail('compliance-assessments', 'AUD.2026.01'),
  clip: (page) => page.getByRole('heading', { name: '…' })
                      .locator('xpath=ancestor::div[contains(@class,"card")][1]')
}

• Prefer clip for concept pages — a whole-viewport shot of a detail route is mostly metadata the prose already covers.
• fullPage: true for long list pages.
• For a guide that walks through steps, use annotate to outline the controls and number them so the prose can refer to them:

annotate: (page) => [
  { at: page.getByRole('link', { name: 'Action plan' }).first(), label: '1' },
  { at: page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Add risk scenario' }).first(), label: '2' }
]

4. Run the harness

cd frontend
./tests/docs-screenshots/run.sh --reseed                       # everything
./tests/docs-screenshots/run.sh --keep-up -- --grep audit      # one shot, servers left up

It uses its own database and ports (8273 / 5273) and must not be pointed at the e2e stack — e2e-tests.sh owns 8173 and test-database.sqlite3, and two runs sharing a SQLite file corrupt each other.

5. Read the PNG before writing the caption

Always open the generated image with the Read tool. Captions must describe what is actually on screen. This step exists because it is genuinely easy to write a caption for a column that is not in the table — a generated screenshot looks authoritative even when the sentence beside it is invented.

While reading it, also check the shot is worth shipping: right record selected, no empty charts, no placeholder -- columns dominating the frame.

If it came from attach mode, run the screening checklist above in the same pass — customer names and real email addresses are the failure that actually matters, and the only place it gets caught is here.

6. Insert the figure

<figure><img src="../.gitbook/assets/<slug>.png" alt=""><figcaption><p>Caption</p></figcaption></figure>

Adjust ../ depth for the page's directory. Quote any UI label in the caption verbatim from frontend/messages/en.json — if the string is not there, the button does not say that.

7. Verify

• every src="...png" in the page resolves on disk
• re-run the harness twice and confirm the PNGs are byte-identical (chart shots may differ by a few antialiased pixels; compare those with a threshold)
• cite the file:line sources you used in the chat reply, not in the doc body

Traps

These all cost time to rediscover.

Reference

frontend/tests/docs-screenshots/README.md holds the harness contract — the determinism table, the config choices and the known caveats. Read it before changing the config or the capture spec.