Aria snapshots

New assertion expect(locator).toMatchAriaSnapshot() verifies page structure by comparing to an expected accessibility tree, represented as YAML.

await page.goto('https://playwright.dev');
await expect(page.locator('body')).toMatchAriaSnapshot(`
  - banner:
    - heading /Playwright enables reliable/ [level=1]
    - link "Get started"
    - link "Star microsoft/playwright on GitHub"
  - main:
    - img "Browsers (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit)"
    - heading "Any browser • Any platform • One API"
`);

You can generate this assertion with Test Generator and update the expected snapshot with --update-snapshots command line flag.

Learn more in the aria snapshots guide.

Test runner

• New option testConfig.tsconfig allows to specify a single tsconfig to be used for all tests.
• New method test.fail.only() to focus on a failing test.
• Options testConfig.globalSetup and testConfig.globalTeardown now support multiple setups/teardowns.
• New value 'on-first-failure' for testOptions.screenshot.
• Added "previous" and "next" buttons to the HTML report to quickly switch between test cases.
• New properties testInfoError.cause and testError.cause mirroring Error.cause.

Breaking: channels chrome, msedge and similar switch to new headless

This change affects you if you're using one of the following channels in your playwright.config.ts:

• chrome, chrome-dev, chrome-beta, or chrome-canary
• msedge, msedge-dev, msedge-beta, or msedge-canary

What do I need to do?

After updating to Playwright v1.49, run your test suite. If it still passes, you're good to go. If not, you will probably need to update your snapshots, and adapt some of your test code around PDF viewers and extensions. See issue #33566 for more details.

Other breaking changes

• There will be no more updates for WebKit on Ubuntu 20.04 and Debian 11. We recommend updating your OS to a later version.
• Package @playwright/experimental-ct-vue2 will no longer be updated.
• Package @playwright/experimental-ct-solid will no longer be updated.

Try new Chromium headless

You can opt into the new headless mode by using 'chromium' channel. As official Chrome documentation puts it:

New Headless on the other hand is the real Chrome browser, and is thus more authentic, reliable, and offers more features. This makes it more suitable for high-accuracy end-to-end web app testing or browser extension testing.

See issue #33566 for the list of possible breakages you could encounter and more details on Chromium headless. Please file an issue if you see any problems after opting in.

import { defineConfig, devices } from '@playwright/test';

export default defineConfig({
  projects: [
    {
      name: 'chromium',
      use: { ...devices['Desktop Chrome'], channel: 'chromium' },
    },
  ],
});

Miscellaneous

• <canvas> elements inside a snapshot now draw a preview.
• New method tracing.group() to visually group actions in the trace.
• Playwright docker images switched from Node.js v20 to Node.js v22 LTS.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 131.0.6778.33
• Mozilla Firefox 132.0
• WebKit 18.2

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 130
• Microsoft Edge 130