Enable canary switching during spec execution

app/views/layouts/header/_default.html.haml

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
               %span.logo-text.d-none.d-lg-block.gl-ml-3
                 = logo_text
           - if Gitlab.com_and_canary?
-            = link_to 'https://next.gitlab.com', class: 'canary-badge bg-transparent', target: :_blank, rel: :_noopener do
+            = link_to 'https://next.gitlab.com', class: 'canary-badge bg-transparent', data: { qa_selector: 'canary_badge_link' }, target: :_blank, rel: :_noopener do
               %span.gl-badge.gl-bg-green-500.gl-text-white.gl-rounded-pill.gl-font-weight-bold.gl-py-1
                 = _('Next')
 

qa/qa/page/main/menu.rb

@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ module QA
 
         view 'app/views/layouts/header/_default.html.haml' do
           element :navbar, required: true
+          element :canary_badge_link
           element :user_avatar, required: true
           element :user_menu, required: true
           element :stop_impersonation_link
@@ -168,6 +169,16 @@ module QA
           click_element(:stop_impersonation_link)
         end
 
+        # To verify whether the user has been directed to a canary web node
+        # @return [Boolean] result of checking existence of :canary_badge_link element
+        # @example:
+        #   Menu.perform do |menu|
+        #     expect(menu.canary?).to be(true)
+        #   end
+        def canary?
+          has_element?(:canary_badge_link)
+        end
+
         private
 
         def within_top_menu(&block)

qa/qa/runtime/browser.rb

@@ -219,6 +219,26 @@ module QA
           yield.tap { clear! } if block_given?
         end
 
+        # To redirect the browser to a canary or non-canary web node
+        #   after loading a subject test page
+        # @param [Boolean] Send to canary true or false
+        # @example:
+        #   Runtime::Browser::Session.target_canary(true)
+        def self.target_canary(enable_canary)
+          if QA::Runtime::Env.qa_cookies.to_s.include?("gitlab_canary=true")
+            QA::Runtime::Logger.warn("WARNING: Setting cookie through QA_COOKIES var is incompatible with this method.")
+            return
+          end
+
+          browser = Capybara.current_session.driver.browser
+
+          if enable_canary
+            browser.manage.add_cookie name: "gitlab_canary", value: "true"
+          else
+            browser.manage.delete_cookie("gitlab_canary")
+          end
+        end
+
         ##
         # Selenium allows to reset session cookies for current domain only.
         #