refactor(locator): find ARIA checkables in Locator, not in each helper

[DavertMik]

Follow-up to #5704, which I wrote and which you were right to find inelegant. It solved the problem three times — once per helper — and left the concept out of Locator, where it belongs.

The idea

Locator.checkable already knows how to find a control by its label: <label for> → @id, nesting inside the label, @aria-label, @aria-labelledby. Those mechanisms are correct. The only thing wrong is that they hard-code the tag. Headless component libraries express the same semantics with a role.

const checkable = `self::input[@type = 'checkbox' or @type = 'radio'] or @role = 'checkbox' or @role = 'radio' or @role = 'switch'`
const visibleCheckable = `.//*[${checkable}][not(@aria-hidden = 'true')]`

Generalise the tag test to a tag-or-role test, skip aria-hidden. Nothing else. Mechanisms 3 and 4 already existed on Locator.field; this brings them to Locator.checkable, where they were missing.

What it removes

	#5704	here
Playwright	getByRole loop over 3 roles × exact/substring	—
Puppeteer	role-scoped ::-p-aria loop + checkableRoles	—
WebDriver	hoisted aria/ + keepCheckable filter	—
Locator	untouched	one predicate

Puppeteer's and WebDriver's ARIA fallbacks return to their original position after the XPath. Net −25 lines of library code, no new public methods, and nothing in the diff names a component library.

An XPath predicate is role-scoped by construction, so the precision problem #5704 had to solve per-helper — a heading sharing the label text winning over the control — cannot arise, and the filtering that guarded against it is gone.

The not(@aria-hidden = 'true') guard is what skips the hidden mirror input these libraries render and point <label for> at, so the visible control is resolved instead. Same guard #5703 uses for Locator.field.

Verification

Against real radix-ui@1.6.7 and @base-ui/react@1.8.0, standalone and inside a <form> — checkOption / seeCheckboxIsChecked on Checkbox, Switch, Radio Group, Checkbox Group work on both libraries.

• Playwright 53 passing, Puppeteer 49 passing, WebDriver 41 passing / 3 pending, 0 failing
• unit 815 passing, plus 81 in locator_test.js including 5 new cases pinning the predicate
• lint clean
• On existing native fixtures the generated XPath returns an identical node set — no behaviour change for plain HTML

#5704's own behaviour-level tests are kept unchanged and still pass; they were good, and they are what proves this is a refactor rather than a rewrite.

Two things I checked and did not claim

• I expected this to fix a menu-item regression from feat: checkOption finds checkables by ARIA role #5704. It doesn't reproduce — Puppeteer checkOption on menuitemcheckbox already works on merged 4.x. Behaviour is identical before and after this change.
• I expected to remove the WebDriver/Radix skip feat: checkOption finds checkables by ARIA role #5704 needed. It can't be removed here — that path fails in proceedSeeCheckbox → findFields, which is Locator.field's territory (see fix(locator): restrict loose field branches to field-like elements #5703), not findCheckable's. Skip left in place.

Scope

Deliberately excluded: aria-pressed toggles (a toggle button is not a checkable, and I.click('Bold') already works), role=menuitemcheckbox, and sliders. None of them need new public API to state, and none were the ask.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01TcwzSXPnfaig8nBZD2Vxfi