Continuous Integration

Introduction

Playwright tests can be executed in CI environments. We have created sample configurations for common CI providers.

3 steps to get your tests running on CI:

1. Ensure CI agent can run browsers: Use our Docker image in Linux agents or install your dependencies using the CLI.

2. Install Playwright:

   mvn exec:java -e -D exec.mainClass=com.microsoft.playwright.CLI -D exec.args="install --with-deps"

3. Run your tests:

   mvn test

CI configurations

The Command line tools can be used to install all operating system dependencies in CI.

GitHub Actions

On push/pull_request

Tests will run on push or pull request on branches main/master. The workflow will install all dependencies, install Playwright and then run the tests.

.github/workflows/playwright.yml

name: Playwright Tests
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main, master ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ main, master ]
jobs:
  test:
    timeout-minutes: 60
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - uses: actions/setup-java@v3
      with:
        distribution: 'temurin'
        java-version: '17'
    - name: Build & Install
      run: mvn -B install -D skipTests --no-transfer-progress
    - name: Ensure browsers are installed
      run: mvn exec:java -e -D exec.mainClass=com.microsoft.playwright.CLI -D exec.args="install --with-deps"
    - name: Run tests
      run: mvn test

Via Containers

GitHub Actions support running jobs in a container by using the jobs.<job_id>.container option. This is useful to not pollute the host environment with dependencies and to have a consistent environment for e.g. screenshots/visual regression testing across different operating systems.

.github/workflows/playwright.yml

name: Playwright Tests
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main, master ]
  pull_request:
    branches: [ main, master ]
jobs:
  playwright:
    name: 'Playwright Tests'
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    container:
      image: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright/java:v1.49.0-noble
      options: --user 1001
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-java@v3
        with:
          distribution: 'temurin'
          java-version: '17'
      - name: Build & Install
        run: mvn -B install -D skipTests --no-transfer-progress
      - name: Run tests
        run: mvn test

On deployment

This will start the tests after a GitHub Deployment went into the success state. Services like Vercel use this pattern so you can run your end-to-end tests on their deployed environment.

.github/workflows/playwright.yml

name: Playwright Tests
on:
  deployment_status:
jobs:
  test:
    timeout-minutes: 60
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.event.deployment_status.state == 'success'
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - uses: actions/setup-java@v3
      with:
        distribution: 'temurin'
        java-version: '17'
    - name: Build & Install
      run: mvn -B install -D skipTests --no-transfer-progress
    - name: Install Playwright
      run: mvn exec:java -e -D exec.mainClass=com.microsoft.playwright.CLI -D exec.args="install --with-deps"
    - name: Run tests
      run: mvn test
      env:
        # This might depend on your test-runner
        PLAYWRIGHT_TEST_BASE_URL: ${{ github.event.deployment_status.target_url }}

Docker

We have a pre-built Docker image which can either be used directly, or as a reference to update your existing Docker definitions.

Suggested configuration

1. Using --ipc=host is also recommended when using Chromium. Without it Chromium can run out of memory and crash. Learn more about this option in Docker docs.
2. Seeing other weird errors when launching Chromium? Try running your container with docker run --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN when developing locally.
3. Using --init Docker flag or dumb-init is recommended to avoid special treatment for processes with PID=1. This is a common reason for zombie processes.

Azure Pipelines

For Windows or macOS agents, no additional configuration required, just install Playwright and run your tests.

For Linux agents, you can use our Docker container with Azure Pipelines support running containerized jobs. Alternatively, you can use Command line tools to install all necessary dependencies.

For running the Playwright tests use this pipeline task:

trigger:
- main

pool:
  vmImage: ubuntu-latest

steps:
- task: JavaToolInstaller@0
  inputs:
    versionSpec: '17'
    jdkArchitectureOption: 'x64'
    jdkSourceOption: AzureStorage
- script: mvn -B install -D skipTests --no-transfer-progress
  displayName: 'Build and install'
- script: mvn exec:java -e -D exec.mainClass=com.microsoft.playwright.CLI -D exec.args="install --with-deps"
  displayName: 'Install Playwright browsers'
- script: mvn test
  displayName: 'Run tests'

Azure Pipelines (containerized)

trigger:
- main

pool:
  vmImage: ubuntu-latest
container: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright/java:v1.49.0-noble

steps:
- task: JavaToolInstaller@0
  inputs:
    versionSpec: '17'
    jdkArchitectureOption: 'x64'
    jdkSourceOption: AzureStorage

- script: mvn -B install -D skipTests --no-transfer-progress
  displayName: 'Build and install'
- script: mvn test
  displayName: 'Run tests'

CircleCI

Running Playwright on CircleCI is very similar to running on GitHub Actions. In order to specify the pre-built Playwright Docker image, simply modify the agent definition with docker: in your config like so:

executors:
  pw-noble-development:
    docker:
      - image: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright/java:v1.49.0-noble

Note: When using the docker agent definition, you are specifying the resource class of where playwright runs to the 'medium' tier here. The default behavior of Playwright is to set the number of workers to the detected core count (2 in the case of the medium tier). Overriding the number of workers to greater than this number will cause unnecessary timeouts and failures.

Jenkins

Jenkins supports Docker agents for pipelines. Use the Playwright Docker image to run tests on Jenkins.

pipeline {
   agent { docker { image 'mcr.microsoft.com/playwright/java:v1.49.0-noble' } }
   stages {
      stage('e2e-tests') {
         steps {
            sh 'mvn -B install -D skipTests --no-transfer-progress'
            sh 'mvn test'
         }
      }
   }
}

Bitbucket Pipelines

Bitbucket Pipelines can use public Docker images as build environments. To run Playwright tests on Bitbucket, use our public Docker image (see Dockerfile).

image: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright/java:v1.49.0-noble

GitLab CI

To run Playwright tests on GitLab, use our public Docker image (see Dockerfile).

stages:
  - test

tests:
  stage: test
  image: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright/java:v1.49.0-noble
  script:
  ...

Caching browsers

Caching browser binaries is not recommended, since the amount of time it takes to restore the cache is comparable to the time it takes to download the binaries. Especially under Linux, operating system dependencies need to be installed, which are not cacheable.

If you still want to cache the browser binaries between CI runs, cache these directories in your CI configuration, against a hash of the Playwright version.

Debugging browser launches

Playwright supports the DEBUG environment variable to output debug logs during execution. Setting it to pw:browser is helpful while debugging Error: Failed to launch browser errors.

DEBUG=pw:browser mvn test

Running headed

By default, Playwright launches browsers in headless mode. See in our Running tests guide how to run tests in headed mode.

On Linux agents, headed execution requires Xvfb to be installed. Our Docker image and GitHub Action have Xvfb pre-installed. To run browsers in headed mode with Xvfb, add xvfb-run before the actual command.

xvfb-run mvn test