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description: A tiered VR program plan for a mid-size Drupal site — ~95 baselines, ~5 minutes locally, manageable maintenance. tldr: Build a 4-tier program: Tier 1 smoke set (~15 baselines, 3–6 critical pages, 3 viewports); Tier 2 component set (~50 baselines, SDC atoms against fixture routes); Tier 3 theme variants (~20 baselines, conditional); Tier 4 cross-browser (~10 baselines, nightly). Ramp up over weeks, not days — stability must be proven before scale.

Reference Program

When to Use

Use this guide when planning a VR program from scratch for a mid-size Drupal site.

Decision

Ramp-up order:

Week Action
1 Tier 1 smoke set + stability checklist + global stylesheet. Confirm suite runs green twice in a row
2–4 Tier 2 component set, one component family at a time. After each, confirm stable; commit baselines
Month 2+ Tier 3 + Tier 4 only when there's a measurable need

Don't build the whole suite at once — most failed VR programs over-invest before stability is proven.

Pattern

Tier 1 — Smoke set (~15 baselines) - 3–6 critical pages: home, primary landing, login, primary content type render - Chromium-only, 3 viewports (mobile / tablet / desktop) - ~5 minutes locally to update

Tier 2 — Component set (~50 baselines) - Every shared SDC / paragraph / block plugin - Chromium-only, 1 viewport (desktop) by default; 3 viewports for responsive components - Captured against /vrt-fixtures/<component> routes, not real content pages

Tier 3 — Theme variant set (~20 baselines) - Only when light/dark or UI Skins variants are in scope - 1 viewport, 1 browser - Conditional: test.skip(!process.env.RUN_THEME_VR, ...)

Tier 4 — Cross-browser set (~10 baselines) - 5 critical pages × {Firefox, WebKit} - Desktop viewport only - Slower cadence (nightly, not per-PR)

Total: ~95 baselines, ~5 minutes locally, manageable maintenance.

See Also