benchmark: complete dashboard production QA and accessibility gate

[TheHiddenObserver]

Context

The benchmark dashboard has automated Python, schema, TypeScript, build, staleness, and Chromium E2E coverage. PR #113 completes the product-level production-path QA pass for PR #76, covering nested asset loading, cross-browser behavior, interaction semantics, and accessibility.

Roadmap: PR #89. Branch synchronization #90 and canonical CV data #91 are complete.

Goal

Establish and execute a reproducible final QA gate for the deployed dashboard under docs/assets/benchmarks/.

Production-path checks

The permanent production Playwright configuration serves the repository root and opens the committed deployment at:

/docs/assets/benchmarks/

The suite verifies nested-path JS/CSS/JSON loading, console/runtime errors, refresh behavior, metadata/data links, and explicit empty states.

Interaction checks

The deployed suite exercises:

Environment → Category → Metric scope → Model → Variant → Penalty → Solver → Scale → Backend → External framework

It verifies context-derived options, deterministic upstream reset, backend/external-framework filtering, scale selection, overview identities, explicit CV failure disclosure, sorting, metric-panel visibility, and filter-synchronized chart-data tables.

Browser matrix

The production suite contains 5 product-level cases and runs all of them in:

• Chromium/Chrome;
• Firefox;
• WebKit/Safari-compatible engine.

Validated result: 15/15 production browser cases passed.

Accessibility checks

Completed coverage includes:

• skip navigation and a main landmark;
• keyboard reachability and Enter/Space activation for generated scale/sort controls;
• select accessible names;
• native metric-panel disclosure buttons with aria-expanded/aria-controls;
• visible focus indication;
• explicit text-contrast checks;
• chart image semantics plus exact, filter-synchronized timing/speedup tables with full labels;
• reduced-motion fallback;
• no primary interaction requiring pointer-only input.

Documentation integration

• the interactive dashboard remains linked from repository documentation navigation;
• English/Chinese benchmark guidance points live source/run counts to inventory instead of undated fixed prose;
• a dated 2026-08-07 snapshot records 9 registered/available/parsed sources and 1,796 normalized runs;
• frontend/e2e-production/README.md documents the final production smoke procedure;
• no unstable screenshots were committed.

Non-goals

• no URL-persisted filter state;
• no full mobile redesign;
• no table virtualization or data-bundle partitioning without measured need;
• no new benchmark family;
• no schema change unrelated to a verified QA defect.

Acceptance criteria

• The production build loads correctly from the nested documentation path.
• Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit/Safari smoke results are recorded.
• The complete filter cascade passes the documented interaction checks.
• Timing, speedup, overview, and domain panels agree on displayed values and identities.
• Empty states and unsupported combinations remain understandable.
• Keyboard navigation and visible focus pass for all primary controls.
• Chart content has an accessible tabular or textual path.
• The user guide is integrated into documentation navigation.
• TypeScript, production build, deterministic staleness, and Playwright checks remain green.
• PR feat: benchmark dashboard frontend and canonical data pipeline #76 body contains the final QA evidence and known limits.

Completion evidence

PR #113 was squash-merged into feature/benchmark-frontend-dashboard as:

c815b89974f529d5da13f4d8522c81746c4d20a3

PR #113 clean-head validation:

Benchmark Frontend CI #489 — success
6/6 jobs successful
production QA — Chromium + Firefox + WebKit

Post-merge staging validation on the exact PR #76 head:

Tests #1419 — success
Benchmark Frontend CI #490 — success
Maintenance compatibility #432 — success
Release notes validation #432 — success
Release package validation #438 — success

Benchmark Frontend CI #490 includes successful Python 3.9/3.11 data gates, TypeScript/build, deterministic staleness, Chromium regression E2E, and committed-deployment production QA in Chromium/Firefox/WebKit.

PR #76 body now records this final QA evidence and the deliberate scope limits.

Dependencies

• benchmark: synchronize dashboard PR #76 with statgpu 0.2.4 master #90: complete.
• benchmark: add canonical cross-validation source and dashboard coverage #91: complete.