[Bug]: Browser testing does not work with Laravel Precognition

[pindab0ter]

What Happened

When browser testing a form in Vue that uses Laravel Precognition, it looks like the precognitive responses are being treated differently than in a non-testing environment, causing the response to be interpreted as a page to be shown:

The same test without Precognition (the error is expected):

How to Reproduce

Download the sample repository, check out the initial commit, run composer install, npm install and vendor/bin/pest. The second commit showcases that the problem is isolated to precognition, as the test passes without it.

Sample Repository

https://github.com/pindab0ter/pest-4-precognition

Pest Version

4.1.4

PHP Version

8.4.14

Operation System

macOS

Notes

No response

[Evenerik]

We ran into the same problem. If you're only testing the "happy path", it is possible to circumvent this directly in the test by using the withoutMiddleware function. Simple example:

<?php

use function Pest\Laravel\withoutMiddleware;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\Middleware\HandlePrecognitiveRequests;

it('can submit the form', function () {
    withoutMiddleware([HandlePrecognitiveRequests::class]);
    
    // Rest of the logic
});

This is of course not ideal at all, but it allows you to run the tests without actually removing the middleware from your routes on the production side of things. At least until a permanent solution is in place