Running and debugging tests
Introduction
With Playwright you can run a single test, a set of tests or all tests. Tests can be run on one browser or multiple browsers by using the --project flag. Tests are run in parallel by default and are run in a headless manner, meaning no browser window will be opened while running the tests and results will be seen in the terminal. However, you can run tests in headed mode by using the --headed CLI argument, or you can run your tests in UI mode by using the --ui flag. See a full trace of your tests complete with watch mode, time travel debugging and more.
You will learn
Running tests
Command line
You can run your tests with the playwright test command. This will run your tests on all browsers as configured in the playwright.config file. Tests run in headless mode by default meaning no browser window will be opened while running the tests and results will be seen in the terminal.
npx playwright test
Run tests in UI mode
We highly recommend running your tests with UI Mode for a better developer experience where you can easily walk through each step of the test and visually see what was happening before, during and after each step. UI mode also comes with many other features such as the locator picker, watch mode and more.
npx playwright test --ui
Check out or detailed guide on UI Mode to learn more about it's features.
Run tests in headed mode
To run your tests in headed mode, use the --headed flag. This will give you the ability to visually see how Playwright interacts with the website.
npx playwright test --headed
Run tests on different browsers
To specify which browser you would like to run your tests on, use the --project flag followed by the name of the browser.
npx playwright test --project webkit
To specify multiple browsers to run your tests on, use the --project flag multiple times followed by the name of each browser.
npx playwright test --project webkit --project firefox
Run specific tests
To run a single test file, pass in the name of the test file that you want to run.
npx playwright test landing-page.spec.ts
To run a set of test files from different directories, pass in the names of the directories that you want to run the tests in.
npx playwright test tests/todo-page/ tests/landing-page/
To run files that have landing or login in the file name, simply pass in these keywords to the CLI.
npx playwright test landing login
To run a test with a specific title, use the -g flag followed by the title of the test.
npx playwright test -g "add a todo item"
Run tests in VS Code
Tests can be run right from VS Code using the VS Code extension. Once installed you can simply click the green triangle next to the test you want to run or run all tests from the testing sidebar. Check out our Getting Started with VS Code guide for more details.
Debugging tests
Since Playwright runs in Node.js, you can debug it with your debugger of choice e.g. using console.log or inside your IDE or directly in VS Code with the VS Code Extension. Playwright comes with UI Mode, where you can easily walk through each step of the test, see logs, errors, network requests, inspect the DOM snapshot and more. You can also use the Playwright Inspector, which allows you to step through Playwright API calls, see their debug logs and explore locators.
Debug tests in UI mode
We highly recommend debugging your tests with UI Mode for a better developer experience where you can easily walk through each step of the test and visually see what was happening before, during and after each step. UI mode also comes with many other features such as the locator picker, watch mode and more.
npx playwright test --ui
While debugging you can use the Pick Locator button to select an element on the page and see the locator that Playwright would use to find that element. You can also edit the locator in the locator playground and see it highlighting live on the Browser window. Use the Copy Locator button to copy the locator to your clipboard and then paste it into you test.
Check out our detailed guide on UI Mode to learn more about it's features.
Debug tests with the Playwright Inspector
To debug all tests, run the Playwright test command followed by the --debug flag.
npx playwright test --debug
This command will open up a Browser window as well as the Playwright Inspector. You can use the step over button at the top of the inspector to step through your test. Or, press the play button to run your test from start to finish. Once the test has finished, the browser window will close.
To debug one test file, run the Playwright test command with the name of the test file that you want to debug followed by the --debug flag.
npx playwright test example.spec.ts --debug
To debug a specific test from the line number where the test(.. is defined, add a colon followed by the line number at the end of the test file name, followed by the --debug flag.
npx playwright test example.spec.ts:10 --debug
While debugging you can use the Pick Locator button to select an element on the page and see the locator that Playwright would use to find that element. You can also edit the locator and see it highlighting live on the Browser window. Use the Copy Locator button to copy the locator to your clipboard and then paste it into your test.
Check out our debugging guide to learn more about debugging with the VS Code debugger, UI Mode and the Playwright Inspector as well as debugging with Browser Developer tools.
Test reports
The HTML Reporter shows you a full report of your tests allowing you to filter the report by browsers, passed tests, failed tests, skipped tests and flaky tests. By default, the HTML report is opened automatically if some of the tests failed, otherwise you can open it with the following command.
npx playwright show-report
You can filter and search for tests as well as click on each test to see the tests errors and explore each step of the test.