@playwright/test 1.64.0 on Node.js NPM

🧰 WebMCP

New page.webmcp and frame.webmcp give access to the tools that a page registers through the experimental WebMCP browser API, so you can test them like any other part of your app:

const browser = await chromium.launch({ args: ['--enable-features=WebMCP'] });
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com');

for (const tool of await page.webmcp.tools())
  console.log(tool.name, tool.description);

const result = await page.webmcp.callTool('add', { a: 2, b: 40 });
console.log(result.content[0].text); // "42"

Playwright MCP also supports WebMCP by default, with page-defined tools offered to the agent as webmcp_<tool>. Pass --no-webmcp to opt out.

playwright-cli exposes them as well:

playwright-cli webmcp-list
playwright-cli webmcp-call search_catalog --params '{"query":"cats"}'

🎬 Better videos

Videos can now be recorded at a custom frame rate, and the decorations for actions are styled with plain CSS:

// playwright.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from '@playwright/test';

export default defineConfig({
  use: {
    video: {
      mode: 'on',
      size: { width: 1920, height: 1080 },
      fps: 60,
      show: {
        actions: {
          style: {
            point: 'width: 20px; height: 20px; border-radius: 50%; background: red',
            highlight: 'outline: 2px solid #333; background: rgba(0, 128, 255, .15)',
            title: 'font-size: 16px',
          },
        },
      },
    },
  },
});

New fps option in testOptions.video, recordVideo and
screencast.start(). Firefox and WebKit currently capture up to 25 frames per second.
New style option takes CSS declarations for the point marker, the target
highlight and the action title. It replaces the fontSize option, which is now deprecated.
The cursor stays visible at the last action point, survives navigations and travels along a natural, eased path.
Videos are encoded with VP9 instead of VP8, which takes less CPU and produces smaller files of the same or better
quality.
All video options are also available in Playwright MCP and playwright-cli.

🎯 Test runner

New testProject.default option keeps a project in the config without running it by default. You can configure every browser you care about, and let a plain npx playwright test run just your favourite one:

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

export default defineConfig({
  projects: [
    { name: 'chromium', use: devices['Desktop Chrome'] },
    { name: 'firefox', use: devices['Desktop Firefox'], default: false },
    { name: 'webkit', use: devices['Desktop Safari'], default: false },
  ],
});

npx playwright test                     # runs chromium only
npx playwright test --project=firefox   # runs firefox
npx playwright test --project="*"       # runs all three, for example on CI

New --shuffle command line option schedules tests in a random order, which helps to find tests that accidentally depend on each other.

npx playwright test --shuffle
# Running 42 tests using 4 workers, shuffle seed 271828182
# ...

# Pass the seed to reproduce the same order.
npx playwright test --shuffle 271828182

New lock option in test.describe.configure() adds test locks to all tests in a file or a group:
```
test.describe.configure({ lock: 'user-settings' });
```

New type option of toHaveScreenshot in testConfig.expect stores all unnamed screenshots as WebP:

// playwright.config.ts
export default defineConfig({
  expect: {
    toHaveScreenshot: { type: 'webp' },
  },
});

🪆 Locator.within()

New locator.within() combines two locators that you already have, reading in the natural order —
"this button, within that dialog":

const saveButton = page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Save' });
const dialog = page.getByTestId('settings-dialog');

await saveButton.within(dialog).click();

Relative locators such as locator.nth() or locator.first() are resolved inside each parent
separately, which makes column-like queries straightforward:

// The third cell of every row, not the third cell in the table.
const thirdColumn = page.getByRole('cell').nth(2).within(page.getByRole('row'));
await expect(thirdColumn).toHaveText(['Apple', 'Banana', 'Cherry']);

New APIs

New page.getByRef() locates an element by its aria ref, such as e2, reported by page.ariaSnapshot() in the 'ai' mode.
New option includeShadow in page.content() and frame.content() serializes open shadow roots as declarative shadow DOM.
New option signCount sets the initial signature counter of a virtual credential. credentials.create() and credentials.get() return the current signCount, and it is saved and restored together with the credentials in the storage state.
New fullConfig.filteredProjects lists the projects that were selected to run after applying the --project filter. It is available in global setup and reporters.

New apiRequestContext.addCookies(), apiRequestContext.cookies() and apiRequestContext.clearCookies() manage cookies of a request context, mirroring the BrowserContext methods:

await request.addCookies([{ name: 'session-id', value: '42', url: 'https://example.com' }]);
console.log(await request.cookies('https://example.com'));
await request.clearCookies({ name: 'session-id' });

Breaking changes ⚠️

screen property is now forwarded from the device descriptors. If you use ...devices['Desktop Chrome'] and alike, window.screen and media queries now see the emulated screen size. You can opt-out by explicitly setting screen to undefined:
```
// playwright.config.ts
export default defineConfig({
  use: {
    ...devices['Desktop Chrome'],
    screen: undefined,
  },
});
```
JSX in your test files now follows your tsconfig.json. Playwright compiles JSX in test files according to the jsx, jsxFactory, jsxFragmentFactory and jsxImportSource tsconfig options, and defaults to the automatic runtime from react/jsx-runtime.
--update-snapshots=missing now passes the test run. Tests that only create missing snapshots now pass in the 'missing' mode of testConfig.updateSnapshots, so that CI can generate new snapshots and verify the existing ones in a single run. The mode used when the option is not specified is now called 'default' and behaves as before: missing snapshots are written and the test fails.
Elements inside hidden iframes are considered hidden. Elements inside an iframe that is not visible, for example with visibility: hidden, are now considered hidden by actions, locator.isVisible() and expect(locator).toBeVisible().

Browser Versions

Chromium 156.0.8078.4
Mozilla Firefox 157.0
WebKit 27.2

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

Google Chrome 155
Microsoft Edge 155

@playwright/test 1.64.0 v1.64.0 on Node.js NPM