Personalization required fields and a misread cart check

The verdict Kane CLI returned

The verdict names the mistake precisely:

• What Kane CLI observed - the final verification on that step could not find the personalization badge it was told to expect.
• The verdict - the cart badge was checked without opening the cart.
• The classification - automation_bug, agent_misstep, at confidence 0.96 to 0.98 on this run.

The step said "click Add to cart, and verify the cart shows a badge". After clicking, the browser is still on the listing page. The cart was never opened, so the badge was never going to be visible, and the failure belongs to whoever wrote the sentence.

The flow under test

The first two steps are the valuable ones, and both passed. They prove the listing renders its price and its character-limited field, and that the item genuinely cannot be added without personalization text.

---
mode: testing
url: https://my-testing-repo-main.vercel.app/etsy-clone-app?reset=true
max_steps: 45
tags: [etsy, marketplace, personalization]
---

# Etsi 5.1: Personalized item purchase

Catalog objective: buy an item requiring personalization text, enter the custom text, and check out.
Key assertion: the personalization text is visible in the order details.

## Open a personalizable listing
Click "Custom Name Letterpress Print" and verify the listing page shows the price "$42.00" and a field labelled "Name to print (max 20 characters)".

## Confirm personalization is required
Click "Add to cart" without entering text and verify an error appears reading "This item requires personalization before it can be added."

## Enter the personalization
Type "Priya & Marco" into the personalization field, click "Add to cart", and verify the cart shows a badge reading "Personalization: "Priya & Marco"".

## Check out
Click "Proceed to checkout" and verify the confirmation shows "Order placed" with an order number starting with "ET-".

## Confirm the text carried into the order
Verify the confirmation lists "Custom Name Letterpress Print" with "Personalization: "Priya & Marco"".

Steps four and five are also sound and both passed once reached. The defect is isolated to the third sentence, which folds a navigation the test never performs into an assertion. Reproduce it with:

kane-cli testmd run tests/etsy/personalized-item_test.md

How the failure surfaced

The result file shows the failure between two passing steps, which is the clearest possible signal that this is a step-level problem rather than a broken flow.

---
test: ../personalized-item_test.md
status: failed
started: 2026-09-15T10:05:02.023Z
duration_s: 157
session_id: 18806767-f8d2-4be7-a8da-10ee69aae11e
---

# Etsi 5.1: Personalized item purchase - Result

## Open a personalizable listing ✓ passed (62.7s)
md5: 739c1d27004f4b87137b6850430cb5bd
Click "Custom Name Letterpress Print" and verify the listing page shows the price "$42.00" and a field labelled "Name to print (max 20 characters)".

## Confirm personalization is required ✓ passed (31.3s)
md5: 5c539eefc36eec95892dfd24cbabbbdd
Click "Add to cart" without entering text and verify an error appears reading "This item requires personalization before it can be added."

## Enter the personalization ✗ failed (59.1s)
md5: 03749e62a9c17b9c4b742be6c87caa25
Reason: Final verification failed: "the cart shows a badge reading "Personalization: "Priya & Marco""" - bug verdict: Cart badge checked without opening the cart [automation_bug/agent_misstep, confidence 0.98]
Type "Priya & Marco" into the personalization field, click "Add to cart", and verify the cart shows a badge reading "Personalization: "Priya & Marco"".

## Check out ✓ passed ( - )
md5: 3b091b588817532c86c08c57949a8d6c
Click "Proceed to checkout" and verify the confirmation shows "Order placed" with an order number starting with "ET-".

## Confirm the text carried into the order ✓ passed ( - )
md5: 2f88d9275467ffa443039aec7d270657
Verify the confirmation lists "Custom Name Letterpress Print" with "Personalization: "Priya & Marco"".

The negative test on step two is worth noting separately. Clicking Add to cart with an empty field and asserting the exact error string is how you prove a required field is genuinely required, rather than merely marked with an asterisk.

Fixing the test

The fix is one sentence. Split step three into an add action and a separate step that opens the cart before asserting the badge, so the assertion runs on the page that holds it.

The broader rule is that a step should assert something visible from where the step leaves the browser. How assertions are decided on the live page explains why a mismatch surfaces as a verification failure rather than a silent pass, and generated test cases tend to avoid this because the navigation is made explicit.