Trace viewer
Introduction
Playwright Trace Viewer is a GUI tool that lets you explore recorded Playwright traces of your tests meaning you can go back and forward though each action of your test and visually see what was happening during each action.
You will learn
- How to record a trace
- How to open the trace viewer
Recording a trace
Traces can be recorded using the BrowserContext.tracing() API as follows:
Browser browser = browserType.launch();
BrowserContext context = browser.newContext();
// Start tracing before creating / navigating a page.
context.tracing().start(new Tracing.StartOptions()
.setScreenshots(true)
.setSnapshots(true)
.setSources(true));
Page page = context.newPage();
page.navigate("https://playwright.dev");
// Stop tracing and export it into a zip archive.
context.tracing().stop(new Tracing.StopOptions()
.setPath(Paths.get("trace.zip")));
This will record the trace and place it into the file named trace.zip.
Opening the trace
You can open the saved trace using the Playwright CLI or in your browser on trace.playwright.dev. Make sure to add the full path to where your trace's zip file is located. Once opened you can click on each action or use the timeline to see the state of the page before and after each action. You can also inspect the log, source and network during each step of the test. The trace viewer creates a DOM snapshot so you can fully interact with it, open devtools etc.
mvn exec:java -e -D exec.mainClass=com.microsoft.playwright.CLI -D exec.args="show-trace trace.zip"
To learn more check out our detailed guide on Trace Viewer.