composed-dom

This package exposes two functions querySelector and querySelectorAll that allow for querying the composed DOM, i.e. the DOM as it is shown by the browser, with light and shadow DOM intermixed.

CSS selectors

The selectors accepted by the functions in this package differ from the CSS selectors accepted by the browser in a few key ways.

• There is no support for :host and :host-context, these don't really mean anything in the context of querySelector(All).
• There is no support for pseudo-element selectors:
  • ::slotted() is not necessary, as you can replace #some-slot::slotted(child-selector) with #some-slot > child-selector
  • ::part() is not considered useful in the context of writing tests, so it was not implemented
  • None of the other pseudo-elements yield actual elements, so they can't really work
• Browsers are lenient if unsupported or invalid selectors are used in e.g. :is(), but this package is strict and will throw an error whenever it encounters an invalid selector.

Composed DOM

Suppose the following DOM:

<my-element>
	<template shadowrootmode="open">
		<header>
			<slot name="title"></slot>
		</header>
		<main>
			<slot></slot>
		</main>
		<footer>
			<slot name="footer"></slot>
		</footer>
	</template>

	<h1 slot="title">Very Important Page</h1>
	<p>Important information, I guess</p>
	<button slot="footer">Click me</button>
</my-element>

This library exposes two functions querySelector and querySelectorAll that traverse this page's composed DOM. For our example above, that means these functions work as if the page instead contained the DOM

<my-element>
	<header>
		<slot name="title">
			<h1 slot="title">Very Important Page</h1>
		</slot>
	</header>
	<main>
		<slot>
			<p>Important information, I guess</p>
		</slot>
	</main>
	<footer>
		<slot name="footer">
			<button slot="footer">Click me</button>
		</slot>
	</footer>
</my-element>

The following queries work if you use document.querySelector(All), but not via this package's functions

• document.querySelector('h1:not(:last-child)')
• document.querySelector('button:not(:first-child)')
• document.querySelector('p:not(:only-child)')
• document.querySelectorAll('my-element > button')

The following queries work if this package, but not via document.querySelector(All):

• querySelector('h1:last-child')
• querySelector('button:first-child')
• querySelector('p:only-child')
• querySelector('slot[name=footer] > button')

Playwright custom selector engine

This package exposes a ./selector-engine entrypoint that can be used as Playwright custom selector engine.

Install the engine in playwright using, for example:

import {selectors} from "@playwright/test";

await selectors.register(
	"css:composed",
	import.meta.resolve("composed-dom/selector-engine"),
);

Usage in non-browser environments

The composed-dom package only references one browser-specific global: the document. The document is only used if no container is passed as second parameter. This makes it possible to use this package in environments other than a browser tab, as long as you're able to provide a valid DOM Document or Element as container parameter.

import {querySelector} from "composed-dom";
import {JSDOM} from "jsdom";

const dom = new JSDOM(/* ... */);

// Pass in a container argument to make querySelector run in
// this non-browser environment.
const mainHeader = querySelector("h1", dom.window.document);