🔒 Test locks

Tests that access a shared resource — an external service, a global account setting — can now declare a named lock.
Tests that share a lock name never run concurrently, across files, workers and projects, while
everything else keeps running in parallel:

test('update user settings', { lock: 'user-settings' }, async ({ page }) => {
  // never runs at the same time as other tests holding 'user-settings'
});

A test can hold multiple locks, and test.describe() accepts a lock for the whole group.
Learn more about test locks.

🪟 Locate across frames

page.frameLocator() and frame.frameLocator() called without a selector search in any frame of the
subtree, so you no longer need to locate the iframe first:

// Finds the button in any frame on the page.
await page.frameLocator().getByRole('button').click();

The rest of the locator resolves inside a single frame, just like a regular locator, and an error is thrown when it
matches elements in several frames.

👁️ Visible-only locators

New locator.visible() returns a locator that matches only visible elements. It is the recommended
replacement for the :visible CSS pseudo-class:

await page.locator('button').visible().click();

🧾 Step params and subtitles

Steps now carry structured data for reporters. Playwright API steps report the target locator and call arguments,
and test.step() accepts subtitle and params options for your own steps:

await test.step('Login', async () => {
  // ...
}, { subtitle: 'as admin', params: { user: 'admin' } });

Reporters receive them via testStep.subtitle and testStep.params. For Playwright API
steps, the subtitle is the locator or the navigation url — for example, Click with subtitle getByRole('button').
Both are rendered next to the step title in the trace viewer and the HTML report.

🖼️ Aria and screen snapshots in traces

The snapshots option of tracing.start() and the testOptions.trace fixture option now accept an
object selecting what to capture on every action:

// playwright.config.ts
export default defineConfig({
  use: {
    trace: {
      mode: 'on',
      snapshots: { dom: true, aria: true, screen: true }
    },
  },
});

With aria and screen snapshots recorded, the new Display Aria mode in the trace viewer shows the action screenshot
side by side with the aria snapshot, and hovering an aria node highlights it on the screenshot.

New APIs

Browser and Context

• httpCredentials now also accepts an array of credentials. The first entry matching the request origin is used, and entries without an origin match any request.
• New option opfs includes the origin private file system in the storage state, so it can be persisted and restored into later contexts.
• New events page.on('dialogclosed') and browserContext.on('dialogclosed') are emitted when a JavaScript dialog is accepted, dismissed or closed by the user.

Locators

• New locator.ariaSnapshotJSON() and page.ariaSnapshotJSON() return the aria snapshot as a JSON value instead of YAML markup, with mode, depth and boxes options.
• apiRequestContext.get() and other request methods accept a type argument that types the response json():

const response = await request.get<User>('/api/users/42');
const user = await response.json(); // typed as User

Test runner

• New standalone testOptions.reducedMotion, testOptions.forcedColors and testOptions.contrast options.
• New --add-reporter command line option appends a reporter on top of the ones configured in playwright.config, instead of replacing them like --reporter does.
• New omitTags option for the list, line, dot, github and junit reporters suppresses the tags that are automatically appended to test titles.

Command line

• npx playwright install --no-remove keeps the browsers of other Playwright installations instead of removing them.
• npx playwright codegen --http-credentials records against pages behind HTTP authentication.

Miscellaneous

• New built-in perfetto reporter writes a Trace Event Format file for the Perfetto UI or chrome://tracing, rendering the test run as a timeline with a lane per worker.
• The HTML report renders a duration waterfall next to test steps.

Announcements

• ⚠️ The experimental @playwright/experimental-ct-react, @playwright/experimental-ct-react17 and @playwright/experimental-ct-vue packages will no longer be updated. Follow the migration guide to move to the stories model introduced in 1.62. Story ids passed to fixtures.mount() can now be typed through the generated Stories registry.
• ⚠️ Ubuntu 20.04 is not supported anymore.
• 🐧 On Linux arm64, Playwright now downloads the Chrome for Testing build of Chromium, the same build used on all other platforms.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 153.0.8010.12
• Mozilla Firefox 155.0
• WebKit 26.6

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 153
• Microsoft Edge 153

Bug Fixes

• #41989 [Regression]: tsconfig "extends" bare specifier isn't resolved via node_modules walk-up like tsc (fatal since 1.62)
• #41998 [Regression]: directory-form tsconfig project references ("path": "../pkg") fail to resolve (fatal since 1.62)
• #41985 Accessibility snapshot drops button name when text is nested inside spans with aria-hidden SVG
• #42000 [Regression]: page.evaluate() arg of a branded primitive type (string & { brand }) no longer type-checks since 1.62
• #42013 [BUG]Image-type actionable elements are not presented in the snapshot.

🧱 New component testing model

Component testing moves to a stories and galleries model.
A story wraps your component in one specific scenario — hard-coded props, mock data, providers — and a gallery page that you serve renders stories on demand.
The new fixtures.mount() fixture navigates to the gallery, mounts a story by id, and returns a Locator scoped to the story's root element:

test('click should expand', async ({ mount }) => {
  const component = await mount('components/Expandable/Stateful');
  await component.getByRole('button').click();
  await expect(component.getByTestId('expanded')).toHaveValue('true');
});

Pass a story type as a template argument to type-check its props, and use update(props) / unmount() on the returned locator to re-render or tear down within a test.

🛑 Cancel operations with AbortSignal

Most operations and web-first assertions now accept a signal option that takes an AbortSignal, letting you cancel long-running actions, navigations, waits, and assertions:

const controller = new AbortController();
setTimeout(() => controller.abort(), 1000);

await page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Submit' }).click({ signal: controller.signal });
await expect(page.getByText('Done')).toBeVisible({ signal: controller.signal });

Providing a signal does not disable the default timeout; pass timeout: 0 to disable it.

🖼️ WebP screenshots

expect(page).toHaveScreenshot() and expect(locator).toHaveScreenshot() can now store snapshots in the WebP format — just give the snapshot a .webp name:

// Visual comparisons store the golden snapshot as lossless WebP.
await expect(page).toHaveScreenshot('homepage.webp');

// Standalone screenshots can trade quality for size with lossy WebP.
await page.screenshot({ path: 'homepage.webp', quality: 50 });

page.screenshot() and [locator.screenshot() (https://playwright.dev/docs/api/class-locator#locator-screenshot) also accept webp as a type, where quality 100 (the default) is lossless and lower values use lossy compression.

🧩 Custom test filtering with Reporter.preprocess()

New reporter.preprocess() hook runs after the configuration is resolved and before reporter.onBegin(), letting a reporter mark individual tests as skipped, excluded, fixed, or failing through a TestRun object:

class MyReporter {
  async preprocess({ config, suite, testRun }) {
    for (const test of suite.allTests()) {
      if (shouldSkip(test))
        testRun.skip(test);
    }
  }
}

🔁 Isolated retries

New testConfig.retryStrategy controls when failed tests are retried.
The default 'immediate' retries as soon as a worker is free; 'isolated' runs all retries at the end, one by one in a single worker, to minimize interference with the rest of the suite:

// playwright.config.ts
export default defineConfig({
  retries: 2,
  retryStrategy: 'isolated',
});

New APIs

Browser and Context

• New option credentials includes the context's virtual WebAuthn Credentials (passkeys) in the storage state, so they can be persisted and re-seeded into later contexts.

Actions

• New scroll option ("auto" | "none") on actions to opt out of Playwright's automatic scroll-into-view.

Network

• New apiResponse.timing() returns resource timing information for an API response.

Evaluation

• New locator.waitForFunction() waits until a function — called with the matching element — returns a truthy value.
• page.evaluate() and related methods now accept functions as evaluate arguments.
• page.addInitScript() / browserContext.addInitScript() now accept functions as init-script arguments.

Command line & MCP

• Playwright now bundles the Playwright MCP server and playwright-cli, runnable via npx playwright mcp and npx playwright cli.

Reporters

• The HTML report's Merge files grouping — previously only a UI toggle — can now be enabled from the config with the new mergeFiles reporter option:

// playwright.config.ts
export default defineConfig({
  reporter: [['html', { mergeFiles: true }]],
});

Announcements

• ⚠️ Debian 11 is not supported anymore.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 151.0.7922.34
• Mozilla Firefox 153.0
• WebKit 26.5

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 151
• Microsoft Edge 151

Bug Fixes

• #41365 [Bug]: Expect.Extend matcher with same name as default matcher in same expect instance overrides default matchers implementation to custom matcher
• #41351 [Bug]: Playwright UI mode: apiRequestContext._wrapApiCall reports unexpected number of bytes (same test passes in headed mode)
• #41360 [Bug]: Trace viewer: message times in websockets are downscaled by 1000
• #41311 [Bug]: [Regression]: Sync loader throws "context.conditions?.includes is not a function" on Node 22.15
• #41371 [Regression]: Sync ESM loader (registerHooks) fails to resolve extensionless .ts subpath imports across pnpm workspace symlinks

🔑 WebAuthn passkeys

New Credentials virtual authenticator, available via browserContext.credentials, lets tests register passkeys and answer navigator.credentials.create() / navigator.credentials.get() ceremonies in the page — no real hardware key required, works in all browsers:

const context = await browser.newContext();

// Seed a passkey your backend provisioned for a test user.
await context.credentials.create('example.com', {
  id: credentialId,
  userHandle,
  privateKey,
  publicKey,
});
await context.credentials.install();

const page = await context.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com/login');
// The page's navigator.credentials.get() is answered with the seeded passkey.

You can also let the app register a passkey once in a setup test, read it back with credentials.get(), and seed it into later tests — see Credentials for details.

🗃️ Web Storage

New WebStorage API, available via page.localStorage and page.sessionStorage, reads and writes the page's storage for the current origin:

await page.localStorage.setItem('token', 'abc');
const token = await page.localStorage.getItem('token');
const items = await page.sessionStorage.items();

New APIs

Network

• apiResponse.securityDetails() and apiResponse.serverAddr() mirror the browser-side response.securityDetails() and response.serverAddr().

Browser and Screencast

• New option artifactsDir in browserType.connectOverCDP() controls where artifacts such as traces and downloads are stored when attached to an existing browser.
• New option cursor in screencast.showActions() controls the cursor decoration rendered for pointer actions.
• The onFrame callback in screencast.start() now receives a timestamp of when the frame was presented by the browser.

Test runner

• The testOptions.video option now supports the same set of modes as trace: new 'on-all-retries', 'retain-on-first-failure' and 'retain-on-failure-and-retries' values. See the video modes table for which runs are recorded and kept in each mode.
• Supported expect.soft.poll(...).
• New fullConfig.argv — a snapshot of process.argv from the runner process, handy for reading custom arguments passed after the -- separator.
• New fullConfig.failOnFlakyTests mirrors the config option, so reporters can explain why a flaky run failed.
• testInfo.errors now lists each sub-error of an AggregateError as a separate entry.
• New -G command line shorthand for --grep-invert.

🛠️ Other improvements

• Playwright now supports Ubuntu 26.04.
• HAR and trace recordings now include WebSocket requests.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 149.0.7827.55
• Mozilla Firefox 151.0
• WebKit 26.5

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 149
• Microsoft Edge 149

🌐 HAR recording on Tracing

tracing.startHar() / tracing.stopHar() expose HAR recording as a first-class tracing API, with the same content, mode and urlFilter options as recordHar. The returned Disposable makes it easy to scope a recording with await using:

await using har = await context.tracing.startHar('trace.har');
const page = await context.newPage();
await page.goto('https://playwright.dev');
// HAR is finalized when `har` goes out of scope.

🪝 Drop API

New locator.drop() simulates an external drag-and-drop of files or clipboard-like data onto an element. Playwright dispatches dragenter, dragover, and drop with a synthetic [DataTransfer] in the page context — works cross-browser and is great for testing upload zones:

await page.locator('#dropzone').drop({
  files: { name: 'note.txt', mimeType: 'text/plain', buffer: Buffer.from('hello') },
});

await page.locator('#dropzone').drop({
  data: {
    'text/plain': 'hello world',
    'text/uri-list': 'https://example.com',
  },
});

🎯 Aria snapshots

• expect(page).toMatchAriaSnapshot() now works on a Page, in addition to a Locator — equivalent to asserting against page.locator('body').
• New boxes option on locator.ariaSnapshot() / page.ariaSnapshot() appends each element's bounding box as [box=x,y,width,height], useful for AI consumption.

🛑 test.abort()

New test.abort() aborts the currently running test from a fixture, hook, or route handler with an optional message. Use it when you have detected an unrecoverable misuse and want to fail the test right away:

test('does not publish to the shared page', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.route('**/publish', route => {
    test.abort('Tests must not publish to the shared page. Use the `clone` option.');
    return route.abort();
  });
  // ...
});

New APIs

Browser, Context and Page

• Event browser.on('context') — fired when a new context is created on the browser.
• BrowserContext now mirrors lifecycle events from its pages: browserContext.on('download'), browserContext.on('frameattached'), browserContext.on('framedetached'), browserContext.on('framenavigated'), browserContext.on('pageclose'), browserContext.on('pageload').

Locators and Assertions

• New option description in page.getByRole() / locator.getByRole() / frame.getByRole() / frameLocator.getByRole() for matching the accessible description.
• New option pseudo in expect(locator).toHaveCSS() reads computed styles from ::before or ::after.
• New option style in locator.highlight() applies extra inline CSS to the highlight overlay, plus new page.hideHighlight() to clear all highlights.

Network

• webSocketRoute.protocols() returns the WebSocket subprotocols requested by the page.
• New option noDefaults in browserType.connectOverCDP() disables Playwright's default overrides on the default context (download behavior, focus emulation, media emulation), so attaching to a user's daily-driver browser doesn't disturb its state.

Errors and Reporting

• New webError.location() mirrors consoleMessage.location().
• consoleMessage.location() now exposes line / column properties (lineNumber / columnNumber are deprecated).
• New testInfoError.errorContext surfaces additional diagnostic context, such as the aria snapshot of the receiver at the time of an expect(...) matcher failure.
• reporter.onError() now receives a workerInfo argument with details about the worker for fixture teardown errors.

Test runner

• New {testFileBaseName} token in testProject.snapshotPathTemplate — file name without extension.
• Test runner now errors when a config tries to override a non-option fixture, and rejects workers: 0 or negative values.

🛠️ Other improvements

• HTML reporter:
  • npx playwright show-report accepts .zip files directly — no need to unzip first.
  • Steps that contain attachments inside nested children show an indicator on the parent step.
  • The repeatEachIndex is shown in the test header when non-zero.
• Trace Viewer adds a pretty-print toggle for JSON / form request and response bodies in the network details panel.

Breaking Changes ⚠️

• Removed long-deprecated APIs:
  • Locator.ariaRef() — use the standard locator.ariaSnapshot() pipeline.
  • handle option on BrowserContext.exposeBinding and Page.exposeBinding.
  • logger option on BrowserType.connect and BrowserType.connectOverCDP — use tracing instead.
  • Context options videosPath / videoSize — use recordVideo instead.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 148.0.7778.96
• Mozilla Firefox 150.0.2
• WebKit 26.4

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 147
• Microsoft Edge 147

Bug Fixes

• [Windows] Reverted hiding console window when spawning browser processes, which caused regressions including broken codegen, --ui and show commands (#39990)

🎬 Screencast

New page.screencast API provides a unified interface for capturing page content with:

• Screencast recordings
• Action annotations
• Visual overlays
• Real-time frame capture
• Agentic video receipts

Screencast recording — record video with precise start/stop control, as an alternative to the recordVideo option:

await page.screencast.start({ path: 'video.webm' });
// ... perform actions ...
await page.screencast.stop();

Action annotations — enable built-in visual annotations that highlight interacted elements and display action titles during recording:

await page.screencast.showActions({ position: 'top-right' });

screencast.showActions() accepts position ('top-left', 'top', 'top-right', 'bottom-left', 'bottom', 'bottom-right'), duration (ms per annotation), and fontSize (px). Returns a disposable to stop showing actions.

Action annotations can also be enabled in test fixtures via the video option:

// playwright.config.ts
export default defineConfig({
  use: {
    video: {
      mode: 'on',
      show: {
        actions: { position: 'top-left' },
        test: { position: 'top-right' },
      },
    },
  },
});

Visual overlays — add chapter titles and custom HTML overlays on top of the page for richer narration:

await page.screencast.showChapter('Adding TODOs', {
  description: 'Type and press enter for each TODO',
  duration: 1000,
});

await page.screencast.showOverlay('<div style="color: red">Recording</div>');

Real-time frame capture — stream JPEG-encoded frames for custom processing like thumbnails, live previews, AI vision, and more:

await page.screencast.start({
  onFrame: ({ data }) => sendToVisionModel(data),
  size: { width: 800, height: 600 },
});

Agentic video receipts — coding agents can produce video evidence of their work. After completing a task, an agent can record a walkthrough video with rich annotations for human review:

await page.screencast.start({ path: 'receipt.webm' });
await page.screencast.showActions({ position: 'top-right' });

await page.screencast.showChapter('Verifying checkout flow', {
  description: 'Added coupon code support per ticket #1234',
});

// Agent performs the verification steps...
await page.locator('#coupon').fill('SAVE20');
await page.locator('#apply-coupon').click();
await expect(page.locator('.discount')).toContainText('20%');

await page.screencast.showChapter('Done', {
  description: 'Coupon applied, discount reflected in total',
});

await page.screencast.stop();

The resulting video serves as a receipt: chapter titles provide context, action annotations highlight each interaction, and the visual walkthrough is faster to review than text logs.

🔗 Interoperability

New browser.bind() API makes a launched browser available for playwright-cli, @playwright/mcp, and other clients to connect to.

Bind a browser — start a browser and bind it so others can connect:

const { endpoint } = await browser.bind('my-session', {
  workspaceDir: '/my/project',
});

Connect from playwright-cli — connect to the running browser from your favorite coding agent.

playwright-cli attach my-session
playwright-cli -s my-session snapshot

Connect from @playwright/mcp — or point your MCP server to the running browser.

@playwright/mcp --endpoint=my-session

Connect from a Playwright client — use API to connect to the browser. Multiple clients at a time are supported!

const browser = await chromium.connect(endpoint);

Pass host and port options to bind over WebSocket instead of a named pipe:

const { endpoint } = await browser.bind('my-session', {
  host: 'localhost',
  port: 0,
});
// endpoint is a ws:// URL

Call browser.unbind() to stop accepting new connections.

📊 Observability

Run playwright-cli show to open the Dashboard that lists all the bound browsers, their statuses, and allows interacting with them:

• See what your agent is doing on the background browsers
• Click into the sessions for manual interventions
• Open DevTools to inspect pages from the background browsers.

🐛 CLI debugger for agents

Coding agents can now run npx playwright test --debug=cli to attach and debug tests over playwright-cli — perfect for automatically fixing tests in agentic workflows:

$ npx playwright test --debug=cli
### Debugging Instructions
- Run "playwright-cli attach tw-87b59e" to attach to this test

$ playwright-cli attach tw-87b59e
### Session `tw-87b59e` created, attached to `tw-87b59e`.
Run commands with: playwright-cli --session=tw-87b59e <command>
### Paused
- Navigate to "/" at output/tests/example.spec.ts:4

$ playwright-cli --session tw-87b59e step-over
### Page
- Page URL: https://playwright.dev/
- Page Title: Fast and reliable end-to-end testing for modern web apps | Playwright
### Paused
- Expect "toHaveTitle" at output/tests/example.spec.ts:7

📋 CLI trace analysis for agents

Coding agents can run npx playwright trace to explore Playwright Trace and understand failing or flaky tests from the command line:

$ npx playwright trace open test-results/example-has-title-chromium/trace.zip
  Title:        example.spec.ts:3 › has title

$ npx playwright trace actions --grep="expect"
     # Time       Action                                                  Duration
  ──── ─────────  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ────────
    9. 0:00.859  Expect "toHaveTitle"                                        5.1s  ✗

$ npx playwright trace action 9
  Expect "toHaveTitle"
  Error: expect(page).toHaveTitle(expected) failed
    Expected pattern: /Wrong Title/
    Received string:  "Fast and reliable end-to-end testing for modern web apps | Playwright"
    Timeout: 5000ms
  Snapshots
    available: before, after
    usage:     npx playwright trace snapshot 9 --name <before|after>

$ npx playwright trace snapshot 9 --name after
### Page
- Page Title: Fast and reliable end-to-end testing for modern web apps | Playwright

$ npx playwright trace close

♻️ await using

Many APIs now return async disposables, enabling the await using syntax for automatic cleanup:

await using page = await context.newPage();
{
  await using route = await page.route('**/*', route => route.continue());
  await using script = await page.addInitScript('console.log("init script here")');
  await page.goto('https://playwright.dev');
  // do something
}
// route and init script have been removed at this point

🔍 Snapshots and Locators

• Method page.ariaSnapshot() to capture the aria snapshot of the page — equivalent to page.locator('body').ariaSnapshot().
• Options depth and mode in locator.ariaSnapshot().
• Method locator.normalize() converts a locator to follow best practices like test ids and aria roles.
• Method page.pickLocator() enters an interactive mode where hovering over elements highlights them and shows the corresponding locator. Click an element to get its Locator back. Use page.cancelPickLocator() to cancel.

New APIs

Screencast

• page.screencast provides video recording, real-time frame streaming, and overlay management.
• Methods screencast.start() and screencast.stop() for recording and frame capture.
• Methods screencast.showActions() and screencast.hideActions() for action annotations.
• Methods screencast.showChapter() and screencast.showOverlay() for visual overlays.
• Methods screencast.showOverlays() and screencast.hideOverlays() for overlay visibility control.

Storage, Console and Errors...

Highlights

#39121 fix(trace viewer): make paths via stdin work
#39129 fix: do not force swiftshader on chromium mac

Browser Versions

• Chromium 145.0.7632.6
• Mozilla Firefox 146.0.1
• WebKit 26.0

Highlights

#39036 fix(msedge): fix local network permissions
#39037 chore: update cft download location
#38995 chore(webkit): disable frame sessions on fronzen builds

Browser Versions

• Chromium 145.0.7632.6
• Mozilla Firefox 146.0.1
• WebKit 26.0