Introduction to GitHub Actions and Playwright

• GitHub Actions is a powerful CI/CD tool that allows developers to automate, customize, and execute workflows directly within a GitHub repository. These workflows can handle everything from running tests to deploying code.
• Playwright, is an end-to-end testing framework that lets you automate modern web browsers. By integrating Playwright into GitHub Actions, developers can set up seamless testing pipelines, ensuring their web applications are thoroughly tested in various environments and browsers.
• In this article, we’ll walk through how to set up GitHub Actions for Playwright testing, provide a detailed explanation of each step, and explore advanced topics like caching, environment variables, reporting, and running tests in parallel.

Prerequisites

Before diving into the setup, ensure you have the following:

• A GitHub account and a repository to work with.
• Basic knowledge of YAML (the language GitHub Actions uses).
• Experience with Node.js and npm.

Step 1: Setting Up GitHub Actions for Playwright

1. Create a GitHub Repository:
   • If you don’t have a GitHub repository, create one by navigating to GitHub and selecting the “New Repository” option.
2. Create a Workflow File:
   • In your GitHub repository, create a .github/workflows directory.
   • Add a YAML file (e.g., playwright_workflow.yml) to define your GitHub Actions workflow.
3. Define Your Workflow:
   • A workflow is a series of automated steps that GitHub will execute. Below is an example of a basic workflow to run Playwright tests:

name: Playwright Testing

on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2

    - name: Set up Node.js
      uses: actions/setup-node@v2
      with:
        node-version: '14'

    - name: Install dependencies
      run: npm install

    - name: Run Playwright tests
      run: npm test

Explanation:

• The on section defines the events that trigger the workflow (e.g., push and pull_request on the main branch).
• The jobs section contains the steps to execute the Playwright tests on an ubuntu-latest runner.
• The steps include checking out the repository, setting up Node.js, installing dependencies, and running tests.

Step 2: Writing Playwright Tests:

With your workflow in place, you need to write some Playwright tests. Playwright supports various browsers like Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. You can write tests using your preferred testing framework (like Jest or Mocha).

– Install necessary packages:

npm install --save-dev jest playwright

– Write a Playwright test:

Assuming a simple test to open a browser and check a webpage:

// test.spec.js

const { chromium } = require('playwright');

describe('My Test Suite', () => {
  let browser;
  let page;

  beforeAll(async () => {
    browser = await chromium.launch();
    page = await browser.newPage();
  });

  afterAll(async () => {
    await browser.close();
  });

  it('should open a page and assert title', async () => {
    await page.goto('https://example.com');
    const pageTitle = await page.title();
    expect(pageTitle).toBe('Example Domain');
  });
});

– Run the tests locally:

npm test

Advanced GitHub Actions Configurations

Matrix Strategy (Testing Multiple Environments)

You can enhance your Playwright setup by using a matrix strategy to run tests across different browsers, Node.js versions, and operating systems.

strategy:
  matrix:
    browser: [chromium, firefox, webkit]
    node-version: [14.x, 16.x]
    os: [ubuntu-latest, windows-latest, macos-latest]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v2
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix['node-version'] }}
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm install
      - name: Install Playwright browsers
        run: npx playwright install
      - name: Run Playwright tests
        run: npm test

This setup runs tests across multiple browsers, Node.js versions, and operating systems, ensuring cross-platform compatibility.

Caching Node Modules

To speed up workflow execution, you can cache dependencies like Node modules.

- name: Cache node modules
  uses: actions/cache@v2
  with:
    path: ~/.npm
    key: ${{ runner.os }}-node-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
    restore-keys: |
      ${{ runner.os }}-node-

Managing Environment Variables and Secrets

If your tests need sensitive data, you can store them as GitHub Secrets and access them within the workflow.

- name: Run Playwright tests with environment variables
  env:
    API_KEY: ${{ secrets.API_KEY }}
  run: npm test

Artifacts and Reporting

To archive test results, logs, or screenshots, use the following configuration:

- name: Archive test artifacts
  uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
  with:
    name: test-results
    path: path/to/artifacts

Notifications on Test Failure

You can notify your team if tests fail using built-in GitHub Actions capabilities or integrations like Slack.

- name: Notify on failure
  if: failure()
  run: echo "Tests failed! Please check."

Continuous Integration (CI):

By integrating these configurations into your GitHub Actions workflow, you establish a continuous integration pipeline. This pipeline automatically triggers tests whenever changes are made to the repository, ensuring that new code doesn’t introduce regressions or issues.

Reviewing Test Results:

Once the workflow is executed, you can review the test results directly in the Actions tab of your GitHub repository. Detailed logs and outputs from the Playwright tests will be available there for analysis.

Conclusion

Integrating Playwright with GitHub Actions can significantly enhance your development workflow. By automating tests across multiple environments, browsers, and platforms, you ensure that your web applications remain stable and reliable. Use caching, notifications, and advanced configuration strategies to optimize your workflow, reduce redundancy, and improve test execution times.