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Playwright

Last modified: 16 September 2025

note

Playwright support in GoLand is provided by the Test Automation plugin, and most of the features described in this section rely on it. However, basic functionality like running and debugging Playwright tests works without the plugin.

Playwright is an open-source test automation framework. It provides a high-level API for automating web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

Create a new Playwright project

A new project is created according to the options that you have selected.

Initialize the Playwright project

Once the project is created, you need to initialize it. During this procedure, you will select the desired language, install Playwright browsers, and specify other settings.

Project initialization

To start the project initialization:

  1. In the Run tool window Alt04, press the up/down arrow buttons on your keyboard to select the language that you want to use in the project.

  2. Type the name of the folder where you want to put your end-to-end tests.

  3. Specify if you want to add a GitHub Actions workflow.

  4. Specify if you want to install Playwright browsers.

When you specify all the parameters, the initialization starts. The system will notify you once the process is completed:

Project successfully initialized

Role-based locators support

In Playwright, you can locate an element by its role. This helps to pinpoint a specific element on the page, be it a button, checkbox, heading, link, or other elements.

GoLand can generate such locators and add them to your code, so you can use them in your tests.

Role-based locators

Add elements to code

  1. Open the file where you want to add an element.

  2. Click the Web Inspector button on the right-hand sidebar to open the Web Inspector toolbar window.

  3. Specify the URL of the page in the address bar.

    Address bar controls

  4. Click The Select Element in Page button and select the element that you want to add in the Web Inspector.

    Select element in page

  5. Once the element is selected, click Add Element to Code to add the element to the code.

    The Add Element to Code button

    To add a specific type of the selector (ID, Name, Tag with classes, and so on), click Add Element to Code By and select the required option.

    Add elements to code by

    tip

    Here, you can also add the element to code by its role.

    If you want to switch specifically between CSS and XPath locators, click and select the required locator type.

    Select locator type

As a result, a piece of code is generated and added to the code editor.

Run tests

  • To run your tests, click the the Run button gutter icon next to the test class or test method, then select the Run option from the list.

    Alternatively, place the caret at the test class to run all tests in that class, or at the test method, and press CtrlShiftF10.

You can run tests in a more customizable way using the run/debug configurations. For more information, refer to Run tests.

Run tests in headed mode

Running tests in headed mode allows you to get a visual representation of how Playwright interacts with the website.

To run tests in headed mode:

  1. Click the current configuration in the run/debug configuration switcher, then click and select the Edit option.

    Editing Run/Debug configurations

  2. In the Playwright options field, specify the --headed command:

    Configuring run/debug configuration to run tests in headed mode

  3. Apply changes and run your tests.

As a result, a browser is opened to reproduce the steps from the tests.

Review test results

When the tests finish running, the results are displayed on the Test Runner tab of the Run tool window. On this tab, you can rerun tests, export and import test results, see how much time it took to run each test, and perform other actions.

Test results shown on the Test Runner tab of the Run tool window

For more information, refer to Explore test results.

Debug tests

In general, the debugging procedure includes the following steps:

  1. Set breakpoints for the lines of code where the execution must be suspended.

  2. Run your code in debug mode.

  3. Use the Debug tool window to analyze the code and locate potential issues.

  4. Fix the issues.

To reproduce these steps in the IDE, do the following:

  1. In the gutter, hover over the executable line of code where you want to suspend the execution and click .

    Set a breakpoint

  2. Click in the gutter and select Debug. This starts the debugger session and runs your code.

  3. Once the program hits the breakpoint, the execution becomes suspended, and you can review the results of the debugger session on the Debug tool window.

    Debug tool window overview

For more information on debugging, refer to Debugging.

Generate Playwright report

Playwright reporters provide detailed information about failed tests, allowing you to perform a more thorough analysis of what happened during the test execution.

By default, an html report is generated, but you can switch to an alternative format using run/debug configurations. To do this:

  1. Click the current configuration in the run/debug configuration switcher, then click and select the Edit option.

    Editing Run/Debug configurations

  2. In the Playwright options field, specify the desired reporter. For example:

    --reporter=line

  3. Apply changes and run your tests.

As a result, a detailed report is generated.

Generated Playwright report

Modify a run/debug configuration

If you want to modify the startup properties for your tests, edit the run/debug configuration:

  1. Click the current configuration in the run/debug configuration switcher and select the Edit Configurations option.

    Select the run/debug configuration

  2. In the Run/Debug Configurations dialog, select the configuration that you want to edit.

  3. Configure the required startup properties.

    Configure startup properties

  4. Apply changes and click OK.

For more information on run/debug configurations, refer to Run/debug configurations.

See also

External Links