playwright/docs/src/test-cli-js.md

id	title
test-cli	Command line

Playwright provides a powerful command line interface for running tests, generating code, debugging, and more. The most up to date list of commands and arguments available on the CLI can always be retrieved via npx playwright --help.

Essential Commands

Run Tests

Run your Playwright tests. Read more about running tests.

Syntax

npx playwright test [options] [test-filter...]

Examples

# Run all tests
npx playwright test

# Run a single test file
npx playwright test tests/todo-page.spec.ts

# Run a set of test files
npx playwright test tests/todo-page/ tests/landing-page/

# Run tests at a specific line
npx playwright test my-spec.ts:42

# Run tests by title
npx playwright test -g "add a todo item"

# Run tests in headed browsers
npx playwright test --headed

# Run tests for a specific project
npx playwright test --project=chromium

# Get help
npx playwright test --help

Disable parallelization

npx playwright test --workers=1

Run in debug mode with Playwright Inspector

npx playwright test --debug

Run tests in interactive UI mode

npx playwright test --ui

Common Options

Option	Description
--debug	Run tests with Playwright Inspector. Shortcut for PWDEBUG=1 environment variable and --timeout=0 --max-failures=1 --headed --workers=1 options.
--headed	Run tests in headed browsers (default: headless).
-g <grep> or --grep <grep>	Only run tests matching this regular expression (default: ".*").
--project <project-name...>	Only run tests from the specified list of projects, supports '*' wildcard (default: run all projects).
--ui	Run tests in interactive UI mode.
-j <workers> or --workers <workers>	Number of concurrent workers or percentage of logical CPU cores, use 1 to run in a single worker (default: 50%).

All Options

Option	Description
Non-option arguments	Each argument is treated as a regular expression matched against the full test file path. Only tests from files matching the pattern will be executed. Special symbols like $ or * should be escaped with \. In many shells/terminals you may need to quote the arguments.
-c <file> or --config <file>	Configuration file, or a test directory with optional "playwright.config.{m,c}?{js,ts}". Defaults to playwright.config.ts or playwright.config.js in the current directory.
--debug	Run tests with Playwright Inspector. Shortcut for PWDEBUG=1 environment variable and --timeout=0 --max-failures=1 --headed --workers=1 options.
--fail-on-flaky-tests	Fail if any test is flagged as flaky (default: false).
--forbid-only	Fail if test.only is called (default: false). Useful on CI.
--fully-parallel	Run all tests in parallel (default: false).
--global-timeout <timeout>	Maximum time this test suite can run in milliseconds (default: unlimited).
-g <grep> or --grep <grep>	Only run tests matching this regular expression (default: ".*").
-gv <grep> or --grep-invert <grep>	Only run tests that do not match this regular expression.
--headed	Run tests in headed browsers (default: headless).
--ignore-snapshots	Ignore screenshot and snapshot expectations.
-j <workers> or --workers <workers>	Number of concurrent workers or percentage of logical CPU cores, use 1 to run in a single worker (default: 50%).
--last-failed	Only re-run the failures.
--list	Collect all the tests and report them, but do not run.
--max-failures <N> or -x	Stop after the first N failures. Passing -x stops after the first failure.
--no-deps	Do not run project dependencies.
--output <dir>	Folder for output artifacts (default: "test-results").
--only-changed [ref]	Only run test files that have been changed between 'HEAD' and 'ref'. Defaults to running all uncommitted changes. Only supports Git.
--pass-with-no-tests	Makes test run succeed even if no tests were found.
--project <project-name...>	Only run tests from the specified list of projects, supports '*' wildcard (default: run all projects).
--quiet	Suppress stdio.
--repeat-each <N>	Run each test N times (default: 1).
--reporter <reporter>	Reporter to use, comma-separated, can be "dot", "line", "list", or others (default: "list"). You can also pass a path to a custom reporter file.
--retries <retries>	Maximum retry count for flaky tests, zero for no retries (default: no retries).
--shard <shard>	Shard tests and execute only the selected shard, specified in the form "current/all", 1-based, e.g., "3/5".
--timeout <timeout>	Specify test timeout threshold in milliseconds, zero for unlimited (default: 30 seconds).
--trace <mode>	Force tracing mode, can be on, off, on-first-retry, on-all-retries, retain-on-failure, retain-on-first-failure.
--tsconfig <path>	Path to a single tsconfig applicable to all imported files (default: look up tsconfig for each imported file separately).
--ui	Run tests in interactive UI mode.
--ui-host <host>	Host to serve UI on; specifying this option opens UI in a browser tab.
--ui-port <port>	Port to serve UI on, 0 for any free port; specifying this option opens UI in a browser tab.
-u or --update-snapshots [mode]	Update snapshots with actual results. Possible values are "all", "changed", "missing", and "none". Running tests without the flag defaults to "missing"; running tests with the flag but without a value defaults to "changed".
--update-source-method [mode]	Update snapshots with actual results. Possible values are "patch" (default), "3way" and "overwrite". "Patch" creates a unified diff file that can be used to update the source code later. "3way" generates merge conflict markers in source code. "Overwrite" overwrites the source code with the new snapshot values.
-x	Stop after the first failure.

Show Report

Display HTML report from previous test run. Read more about the HTML reporter.

Syntax

npx playwright show-report [report] [options]

Examples

# Show latest test report
npx playwright show-report

# Show a specific report
npx playwright show-report playwright-report/

# Show report on custom port
npx playwright show-report --port 8080

Options

Option	Description
--host <host>	Host to serve report on (default: localhost)
--port <port>	Port to serve report on (default: 9323)

Install Browsers

Install browsers required by Playwright. Read more about Playwright's browser support.

Syntax

npx playwright install [options] [browser...]
npx playwright install-deps [options] [browser...]
npx playwright uninstall

Examples

# Install all browsers
npx playwright install

# Install only Chromium
npx playwright install chromium

# Install specific browsers
npx playwright install chromium webkit

# Install browsers with dependencies
npx playwright install --with-deps

Install Options

Option	Description
--force	Force reinstall of stable browser channels
--with-deps	Install browser system dependencies
--dry-run	Don't perform installation, just print information
--only-shell	Only install chromium-headless-shell instead of full Chromium
--no-shell	Don't install chromium-headless-shell

Install Deps Options

Option	Description
--dry-run	Don't perform installation, just print information

Generation & Debugging Tools

Code Generation

Record actions and generate tests for multiple languages. Read more about Codegen.

Syntax

npx playwright codegen [options] [url]

Examples

# Start recording with interactive UI
npx playwright codegen

# Record on specific site
npx playwright codegen https://playwright.dev

# Generate Python code
npx playwright codegen --target=python

Options

Option	Description
-b, --browser <name>	Browser to use: chromium, firefox, or webkit (default: chromium)
-o, --output <file>	Output file for the generated script
--target <language>	Language to use: javascript, playwright-test, python, etc.
--test-id-attribute <attr>	Attribute to use for test IDs

Trace Viewer

Analyze and view test traces for debugging. Read more about Trace Viewer.

Syntax

npx playwright show-trace [options] <trace>

Examples

# View a trace file
npx playwright show-trace trace.zip

# View trace from directory
npx playwright show-trace trace/

Options

Option	Description
-b, --browser <name>	Browser to use: chromium, firefox, or webkit (default: chromium)
-h, --host <host>	Host to serve trace on
-p, --port <port>	Port to serve trace on

Specialized Commands

Merge Reports

Read blob reports and combine them. Read more about merge-reports.

Syntax

npx playwright merge-reports [options] <blob dir>

Examples

# Combine test reports
npx playwright merge-reports ./reports

Options

Option	Description
-c, --config <file>	Configuration file. Can be used to specify additional configuration for the output report
--reporter <reporter>	Reporter to use, comma-separated, can be "list", "line", "dot", "json", "junit", "null", "github", "html", "blob" (default: "list")

Clear Cache

Clear all Playwright caches.

Syntax

npx playwright clear-cache