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CI Patterns

When to Use

Use sharding for suites over 100 tests. Combine blob reporter on each shard with merge-reports to get a unified HTML report. Store artifacts on failure only.

Decision

Knob Default Scope
timeout 30000ms Whole test
expect.timeout 5000ms Each expect() web-first assertion
actionTimeout 0 (falls back to test timeout) Each click, fill, etc.
navigationTimeout 0 (falls back to test timeout) goto, waitForURL

Bias toward defaults. Raising expect.timeout to mask flake hides bugs.

Pattern

// playwright.config.ts (CI-aware)
export default defineConfig({
  workers: process.env.CI ? '50%' : undefined,
  fullyParallel: true,
  retries: process.env.CI ? 2 : 0,
  forbidOnly: !!process.env.CI,
  reporter: process.env.CI ? [['blob']] : 'html',
  use: {
    trace: 'on-first-retry',
    screenshot: 'only-on-failure',
    video: 'retain-on-failure',
  },
});

# Sharding
npx playwright test --shard=1/4   # node 1
npx playwright test --shard=2/4   # node 2

# Merge after all shards complete
npx playwright merge-reports --reporter=html ./all-blob-reports

GitHub Actions matrix

jobs:
  test:
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        shardIndex: [1, 2, 3, 4]
        shardTotal: [4]
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx playwright install --with-deps
      - run: npx playwright test --shard=${{ matrix.shardIndex }}/${{ matrix.shardTotal }}
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        if: ${{ !cancelled() }}
        with:
          name: blob-report-${{ matrix.shardIndex }}
          path: blob-report
          retention-days: 7

  merge-reports:
    if: ${{ !cancelled() }}
    needs: [test]
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
      - run: npm ci
      - uses: actions/download-artifact@v4
        with: { path: all-blob-reports, pattern: blob-report-* }
      - run: npx playwright merge-reports --reporter=html ./all-blob-reports
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with: { name: html-report, path: playwright-report }

Common Mistakes

  • Wrong: No sharding on suites > 100 tests — wastes wall time
  • Wrong: Sharding without blob + merge — N partial reports, no unified view
  • Wrong: workers: 100% — RAM exhaustion on small CI runners
  • Wrong: Storing artifacts on success — multiplies cost; failure-only is the default

See Also