HTML Report Overview
When to Use
Use
htmlreporter when VR tests fail and you need to see what changed and why. Use other reporters (list,junit,github) to complement it for terminal output or CI integration — never as a replacement.
Decision
| Reporter | When |
|---|---|
html |
Triage VR diffs, browse traces — the canonical post-run artifact |
list |
Streaming line-per-test in terminal — local dev flow |
line |
Single updating terminal line — minimal CI logs |
dot |
One char per test — very large suites |
json |
Machine-readable — custom dashboards |
junit |
Required by Jenkins, Bamboo, Azure DevOps, GitLab test tab |
github |
GitHub Actions inline annotations on PR diff |
blob |
Sharded runs — merge later with playwright merge-reports |
For VR, always include html. Combine with others for CI integration; never replace.
Pattern
The report is a self-contained static HTML bundle containing:
index.html— the SPA entry pointdata/folder with screenshots (expected, actual, diff PNGs), videos, trace archives, console logs, network logs- All JS/CSS bundled in — no external CDN required
Open from disk or any static host (but use show-report for traces — see Viewing).
Common Mistakes
- Wrong: using
listonly and trying to triage VR from terminal → Right: no diff viewer in terminal; the slider scrubber is the triage tool - Wrong: skipping
htmlbecause reports "take up space" → Right: they're regeneratable; developer time saved on triage dwarfs the disk cost
See Also
- Enabling
- VR Diff Panel
- Reference: Playwright Reporters