Playwright CI/CD

CI/CD runs Playwright headlessly on every push. Success requires browser install, app startup, env vars, artifact upload, and sensible parallelism.

CI Pipeline Steps

Typical flow: checkout → install deps → npx playwright install --with-deps → build app → npx playwright test → upload report/trace on failure.

Use forbidOnly: !!process.env.CI and retries in config. Never commit test.only.

steps:
  - run: npm ci
  - run: npx playwright install --with-deps
  - run: npm run build
  - run: npx playwright test
  env:
    CI: true

webServer in config can replace manual start server step.

CI Checklist

✓ install browsers + deps
✓ set BASE_URL / secrets
✓ cache node_modules + ~/.cache/ms-playwright
✓ upload html-report + traces on fail
✓ shard or matrix for speed

Linux CI needs --with-deps for system libraries.
Cache Playwright browsers between runs.
Set CI=true for config conditionals.
Fail build on test failure — don't ignore exit code.

CI/CD Reference

Essential CI practices.

Practice	Why
install --with-deps	Linux browser dependencies
Cache browsers	Faster pipeline
webServer config	Auto-start app
retries on CI	Absorb transient flakes
Artifact upload	Debug without local repro
merge-reports	Unified report from shards

Exit Codes and Gates

Playwright exits non-zero on failure — wire directly to pipeline gate. Use --pass-with-no-tests only in optional jobs, not main quality gate.

forbidOnly in CI

forbidOnly: !!process.env.CI fails the build if someone commits test.only — prevents accidental single-test pipelines.

Common Mistakes

Skipping playwright install in CI.
Tests hitting localhost without starting server.
No artifact upload — can't debug CI-only failures.
Ignoring flaky pass-on-retry without investigation.

Key Takeaways

CI pipeline: deps, browsers, build, test, artifacts.
Cache and sharding reduce pipeline time.
Config adapts to CI via process.env.CI.
Reports and traces are mandatory for async teams.

Pro Tip

Run the exact CI container image locally with Docker to reproduce 'passes local, fails CI' without pushing commits.