What is `playwright.config.ts`?

What is playwright.config.ts?¶

It is the central configuration file that defines:

• Where your tests live
• How your tests run
• Which environment variables are loaded
• What reports are generated
• Runtime behavior like tracing, headless mode, and session reuse 📄 File Overview

import { defineConfig } from '@playwright/test';
import 'dotenv/config';
import * as path from 'path';
import { fileURLToPath } from 'url';

const __filename = fileURLToPath(import.meta.url);
const __dirname = path.dirname(__filename);

export const AUTOMATION_USER_STORAGE_STATE = path.join(
  __dirname,
  'utils/functions/loginSetup/loginData/automationUsertorageState.json'
);

• Loads environment variables from .env via dotenv
• Defines a path to the user's storage state JSON file (used for logged-in session reuse)

⚙️ defineConfig({ ... }) Options Explained¶

📁 globalSetup¶

globalSetup: './utils/functions/global.setup.ts',

• Script run once before all tests
• Used for setup tasks like logging in, saving tokens or storage state

📂 testDir testDir: './tests',

• Folder where all test specs reside
• UI and API specs should be organized in subfolders like tests/ui and tests/api

⏱️ timeout & expect.timeout

timeout: 6000 * 1000,         // 100 minutes max per test
expect: { timeout: 30000 },   // 30 seconds for individual expect() assertions

🧪 fullyParallel, forbidOnly, retries, workers | Option | Description | | --- | --- | | fullyParallel | Enables all tests to run independently and in parallel | | forbidOnly | Fails build if .only is left in test code (prevents skipping others) | | retries | Retries tests twice (even in non-CI environments) | | workers | Uses 1 worker in CI (serial run), unlimited locally |

📋 reporter reporter: process.env.CI ? [ ... ] : [ ... ] | Reporter | Description | | --- | --- | | html | Generates interactive HTML report | | list | Console-friendly test results | | playwright-ctrf-json-reporter | Outputs results in JSON (for CI pipelines or Sonar) | | monocart-reporter | Advanced interactive reports with timeline & filtering |

Reports are saved under ./reports/ folder

⚙️ use

use: {
  trace: 'on',
  headless: !!process.env.CI,
  video: 'on',
  screenshot: 'on'
}

📌 Best Practices¶

• Keep globalSetup clean and limited to session prep
• Use tagged tests (@ui, @api) and filtered runs via -g
• Archive video/screenshot artifacts in CI pipelines
• Update timeout values for slow environments if necessary