Phase 2: Automate Lighthouse Audits and Track Quality Metrics

[Copilot]

Implemented automated Lighthouse audits during CI/CD pipeline to record Performance, Accessibility, and SEO scores per released version. Metrics are persisted in an append-only format to support future trend analysis and quality tracking.

Changes

New Workflows & Scripts

• .github/workflows/lighthouse-audit.yml: GitHub Actions workflow triggered on release tags (v*) or manual dispatch

  • Builds Jekyll site and serves locally via Python's built-in http.server
  • Runs Lighthouse CLI with CI-optimized settings (--no-sandbox, simulated throttling)
  • Persists metrics to _data/quality_log.yml with [skip-version] guard to prevent CI loops
  • Implements 3-tier version resolution (manual input → git tag → VERSION.txt fallback)

• tools/lighthouse_audit.rb: Ruby script for Lighthouse coordination

  • Accepts version and site URL parameters
  • Executes Lighthouse, parses JSON output, extracts three scores
  • Appends metrics to quality log with comprehensive error handling
  • Includes JSON parsing exception handling and version validation

• _data/quality_log.yml: Append-only YAML quality metrics log

  • Stores version, release_date, commit_sha, Performance/Accessibility/SEO scores, and workflow run URL

Modified Workflows

• .github/workflows/deploy.yml: Added [skip-version] flag detection to skip version bump/tag creation for metrics-only commits, preventing deployment loops

Documentation

• ROADMAP.md: Marked Phase 2 Lighthouse Tracking complete with implementation details and design rationale (local site serving, Ruby script, YAML format, version precedence)

Example Quality Log Entry

- version: '1631'
  release_date: '2026-09-07'
  commit_sha: abc123def456
  performance: 85
  accessibility: 92
  seo: 88
  workflow_run_url: https://github.com/TestingConferences/testingconferences.github.io/actions/runs/12345

Design Notes

• Local site serving: Ensures repeatable audits without external dependencies or production traffic
• Append-only format: Preserves historical data for Phase 4 trend visualization
• [skip-version] guard: Metrics commits skip version increment, preventing cascading CI runs
• Manual trigger support: workflow_dispatch enables testing and recovery workflows
• Robust validation: Tag format checking, version fallback chain, comprehensive error messages

• Fixes Phase 2: Automate Lighthouse Audits and Track Quality Metrics #932