Playwright v1.63.0 release notes

🔒 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

Playwright v1.63.0