Cypress is a tool that allows writing automated tests in JavaScript to test frontend applications. It runs tests directly in the browser to avoid issues with end-to-end tests like flakiness and long setup times. Cypress taps into native browser APIs and uses a network proxy to control requests and avoid same-origin policy issues. It provides real-time DOM access, asynchronous commands, automatic retries, and the ability to stub network requests. While not fully open source and limited to JavaScript, Cypress aims to solve problems with traditional end-to-end testing.