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Diff Descriptions

Eyes classifies every visual difference between a baseline and a checkpoint into a plain-English description — for example, "Font family changed from Calibri to Arial". These descriptions let you review results faster, group functionally-equivalent UI changes for bulk maintenance, and ask AI assistants to summarize what changed across a batch.

View Details popup showing a diff description in context

Why Diff Descriptions Exist​

When a UI change affects many checkpoints in the same way — a font swap, a button-color change, a string replacement — reviewing each step manually wastes time. Diff descriptions classify each diff so that:

  • You can quickly identify what kind of change is in front of you without inspecting pixels.
  • You can group similar diffs and accept or reject them together.
  • AI-assisted tools (Step Overview, Batch Overview, the MCP server) can produce concise summaries of what changed.

Match Levels and Dynamic Data​

The categories below only apply to diffs Eyes actually flags. Under ignore, dynamic, or layout match levels, dynamic content is not flagged as a diff and so is not classified. If dynamic content is flagged (for example, under strict match level), Eyes classifies it using the rules below rather than attempting to re-detect it as dynamic data.

Categories​

Diffs fall into one of three top-level categories.

Formatting & Style​

Visual changes to how content is presented, without changes to the content itself.

Font & Spacing

  • Font size was changed from <x> to <y>. Excludes buttons and anchors (link elements).
  • Font family was changed from <x> to <y>. Excludes buttons and anchors.
  • Font foreground color was changed from <x> to <y>.
  • Font style was changed from <x> to <y> — normal, italic, underline, strikethrough, or font weight.

Headings

  • Font role was changed from <x> to <y> — for example, <h1> to <h6>.

Layout

  • Background color was changed for layout element from <x> to <y>. Excludes buttons and anchors.
  • Border style was changed for layout element from <x> to <y> — border color, border width, or border corner radius. Excludes buttons and anchors.

Clickable Elements

The same Font, Background, and Border properties as above, but scoped to clickable elements (buttons, links). Additionally:

  • Hover state was changed for clickable elements — covers all hover-state properties including style and border.

Content and Data Integrity​

Changes to the actual text or graphic content in a checkpoint.

  • Text content was changed from <x> to <y> — when the new text is 10 words or fewer, both old and new values are shown.
  • Text content was changed — when the new text is more than 10 words, only the fact of the change is reported.
  • Graphic (icon, SVG, image, or video) was changed for element <x> — where <x> identifies the element by name, path, or content.

Unclassified Differences​

Any difference Eyes cannot place into the categories above is reported as an Unclassified difference.

Multiple Categories Per Step​

A single checkpoint can contain diffs from more than one category. Eyes applies the following rules:

  • A step whose diffs fall into 2 or 3 categories is grouped under the combined categories.
  • A step whose diffs fall into more than 3 categories is placed under a Multiple differences category.
  • A step that contains only unclassified diffs is placed under Unclassified differences.
  • A step that mixes up to 3 classified categories plus unclassified diffs is grouped under the combined categories alongside Unclassified differences.

Where You'll See Diff Descriptions​

Diff descriptions surface in three places in the Test Manager UI, plus the server API and the MCP server.

Per-Diff Details​

Hover any diff in the Step Editor to see the diff description for that specific change, along with a count of similar diffs in the batch.

Diff Details hover popup

Step Overview​

The Step Overview panel summarizes every change in the current checkpoint at the top of the Step Editor.

Step Overview banner on the Step Editor

Batch Overview​

The Batch Overview banner on the Test Results page rolls up every diff description in an unresolved batch and lets you re-group the view by diff description with one click.

Batch Overview banner with Group by diff description CTA

Other Surfaces​