Getting Started with Playwright: Install, Configure, and Write Your First Tests

Background

Automated testing is crucial for front‑end quality and user experience, especially as web applications become more complex and rapid iteration is required. Manual testing cannot keep up with continuous delivery, whereas automation simulates user interactions, speeds up test cycles, improves coverage, and reduces maintenance costs.

Playwright, an open‑source project from Microsoft, supports all modern browsers (Chromium, WebKit, Firefox) on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Its unified API lets developers write a single test script that runs across browsers and platforms, eliminating the need for separate test suites.

Features such as automatic waiting, rich APIs, full support for modern web capabilities, and parallel execution make Playwright a powerful tool for front‑end automation, increasingly becoming the de‑facto standard.

Installation

Ensure Node.js and npm are installed. Then install Playwright globally and its browsers:

npm i -D playwright

playwright install

Configuration

Initialize a Playwright project in a new repository to generate configuration files and required dependencies:

npx playwright install

Demo

const { chromium } = require('playwright');
(async () => {
  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://www.baidu.com');
  // Add your test actions here...
  await browser.close();
})();

Running Tests

npx playwright test

Common APIs

GET request

const { request } = require('playwright');
(async () => {
  const context = await request.newContext();
  const response = await context.get(url, {
    headers: { "Authorization": "Bearer " },
    params: { query: 'value' }
  });
  if (response.ok) {
    console.log('Response:', await response.json());
  } else {
    console.error('Error:', response.status());
  }
  await context.dispose();
})();

POST request

const { request } = require('playwright');
(async () => {
  const context = await request.newContext();
  const url = xxx;
  const data = { key1: 'value1', key2: 'value2' };
  const response = await context.post(url, {
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      // Optional authentication
      'Authorization': 'Bearer '
    },
    data: JSON.stringify(data)
  });
  if (response.ok) {
    console.log('Response:', await response.json());
  } else {
    console.error('Error:', response.status());
  }
  await context.dispose();
})();