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Viewing Reports

When to Use

Use npx playwright show-report when opening a generated report to triage failures. Never open index.html directly via file://.

Decision

Context Default behavior
Local, run failed Auto-opens browser to the report
Local, run passed Does not auto-open
CI (CI=true) Does not auto-open

Pattern

Open latest report:

npx playwright show-report

Open specific report:

npx playwright show-report ./playwright-report
npx playwright show-report ./reports/run-2026-05-08

Change port or bind interface:

npx playwright show-report --port 8080
npx playwright show-report --host 0.0.0.0     # bind on all interfaces (LAN sharing)

Environment Variables

Var Purpose
PLAYWRIGHT_HTML_REPORT Override outputFolder
PLAYWRIGHT_HTML_OPEN always | never | on-failure
PLAYWRIGHT_HTML_HOST Bind host
PLAYWRIGHT_HTML_PORT Bind port

Common Mistakes

  • Wrong: opening index.html via file:// → Right: trace viewer breaks; always use show-report or another HTTP server
  • Wrong: port 9323 collision with no error handling → Right: use --port or PLAYWRIGHT_HTML_PORT to override
  • Wrong: running show-report from the wrong cwd and getting an old report → Right: always pass an explicit path

See Also