Hello QA fellows!
Freshly published"My Top 19+1 Favorite Cypress Plugins for Testing with Wick-like Precision!"
You can check it out here: My Top 19+1 Favorite Cypress Plugins for Testing with Wick-like Precision! - DEV Community
Cheers!
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@sebastianclavijo - Nice article. Can you tell me how you came up with the idead for the Wick Plugin? I was thinking of making a plugin for cypress for a long time but do not know really where to start. I know what would benefit me, but I want to know what would the community need/want
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Thanks, @restertest! I’m very glad you liked the article. The Wick-a11y plugin actually has a long history. I’ve always promoted accessibility in web apps, previously as a developer, and later as a product manager. I ensured the products I managed were as accessible as possible, focusing on critical features. Although sometimes considered a significant opportunity cost, for me, it was a no-brainer.
As a product manager, we used Cypress for testing and utilized cypress-axe. While it served as a great plugin wrapping axe-core for Cypress, it provided raw data, which led us to create custom HTML reports and logs. This resulted in duplicated code and differing reports, as each QA engineer contributed in their way. Maintenance became a nightmare without graphic reports, leading QAs to make screenshots manually.
When I transitioned to a QA Engineer, I realized changes were necessary, as no single tool provided what was needed out of the box. So, I decided to create one myself.
Shortly after I already decided to implement such plugin, Cypress Accessibility emerged, a fantastic tool requiring no instrumentation. However, its cost was not inexpensive for small and mid-sized businesses, motivating me to offer an alternative plugin with minimal configuration and user-friendly features. I later added voice feedback, recognizing that many accessibility-focused testers have disabilities themselves, making it fair for Wick-a11y to be as accessible as possible.
The name Wick-a11y also has its own story. Like the pronunciation of WCAG as “wick-AG,” a wick is part of a candle providing light, aligning with the plugin’s mission. Additionally, being a fan of John Wick, it seemed a more than an appropriated name for a “killer plugin”. 
This was my way of giving back to the Cypress community in my personal time.
If you want to create your own Cypress plugin, my recommendation would be to choose something meaningful to you that serves a purpose and fills a gap. After all, you will be spending countless hours of your personal time, so it’s best to work on something that resonates with you personally.
If you would like to know how to implement a plugin from start (GitHub repo creation) to finish (publishing on npm), I suggest looking at my article, “The Quirky Guide to Crafting and Publishing Your Cypress npm Plugin”. Everything you need to create your own plugin is there, including a GitHub repo with the resultant plugin implemented throughout the article, which you can use as a template if you want to.
Good luck, and let me know how it goes. You can ping me anytime if you would like to discuss further or have any questions. Good luck!
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