Playwright Regression Testing (TypeScript)
Strategy and best practices for automated regression testing of web applications using Playwright with TypeScript.
Activation: This skill is triggered when working with regression test strategy, test suite selection, test prioritization, CI/CD pipeline testing, flaky test management, test sharding, or optimizing test execution for web applications using Playwright.
When to Use This Skill
- Plan regression suites with risk-based and change-based test selection
- Organize tests into tiers (smoke, sanity, selective, full regression)
- Optimize execution with parallelization, sharding, and time-budget strategies
- Integrate with CI/CD using GitHub Actions pipelines
- Manage flaky tests with quarantine, retry policies, and root cause tracking
- Monitor suite health with execution time, flake rate, and detection metrics
- Select tests after changes using git diff analysis and impact mapping
Do NOT Use For
- Authoring a single UI spec or page-object model (use
playwright-e2e-testing). - Driving a live browser interactively for debugging (use
playwright-cli). - Selenium/Java regression suites (use
webapp-selenium-testing). - API contract testing in isolation (use
api-testing).
Prerequisites
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| Node.js | v18+ recommended |
| Playwright | @playwright/test package |
| TypeScript | typescript configured in project |
| Browsers | Installed via npx playwright install |
| Git | Required for change-based test selection |
| GitHub Actions | Recommended CI/CD platform |
Quick Reference
Tiers: Smoke (<2min, every commit) → Sanity (<10min, every PR) → Selective (<30min, on merge) → Full (<60min, nightly/pre-release).
Key tags: @smoke, @sanity, @regression, @e2e, @api, @destructive — exactly one per test, never on describe() blocks. Domain-specific extensions (e.g., @a11y in accessibility skills) are allowed alongside, but only one execution tag per test.
CLI: npx playwright test --grep @smoke | --grep @regression | --grep-invert @destructive | --shard=1/4 | --last-failed
For full tier model, regression types table, and tag taxonomy, see references/regression-catalogs.md.
Red Flags
- Treating flaky tests as "fixed" by adding retries or
waitForTimeout— quarantine and root-cause instead. - Running the full suite on every commit — use tiered selection (smoke on commit, full nightly).
- Quarantining tests silently with no tracking ticket — quarantine must be temporary and owned.
- No change-based selection — running everything regardless of what changed wastes CI budget.
- Ignoring suite-health metrics (rising duration, climbing flake rate) until they block releases.
References
| Document | Content |
|---|---|
| Regression Strategy | Tier model (smoke→full), regression types, triggers, directory layout, test tagging and tag taxonomy |
| Regression Selection | Test selection (change-based, risk-based, historical, time-budget) and test naming conventions |
| Regression Best Practices | Locator priority, web-first assertions, test independence, test.step() reporting, complete worked example test |
| CI/CD Integration | GitHub Actions tiered pipeline, sharding, merge reports, Playwright config, performance optimization, CLI reference |
| Flaky Management | Retry policies, quarantine strategies, detection checklist, suite health metrics, troubleshooting |
Verification
- Smoke test subset identified — Tagged
@smoketests run in under 2 minutes - No test duplication — Each scenario tested exactly once at the appropriate level
- Test isolation verified — Running tests in random order produces same results as sequential
- Flaky test baseline established — All tests pass 5/5 consecutive runs