Mastering Test Annotations

Elevating Precision and Efficiency with Playwright Test

Annotations for test automation were likely introduced as part of the development of the JUnit testing framework. JUnit annotations enable developers to add metadata to their test cases, such as the test case name, expected outcome, and author. In recent years, annotations have become even more critical in test automation as the field has become more complex and demanding. Annotations or decorators add metadata or behaviour to test cases, test suites, or test setups. Playwright Test supports test annotations for handling test failures, flakiness, skipping, focusing, and tagging. Annotations can be conditional, applying only when the condition is true or dependent on test fixtures. Multiple annotations can be used on the same test with different configurations.

Annotations are now mainly used to

• Control the execution of tests — The @test.timeout annotation can be used to set a timeout for a test. This can help prevent tests from running for too long and causing the test suite to fail.
• Customizing test behaviour — The @test.retry annotation can be used to retry a test a certain number of times before considering it as a failure. This can be useful for flaky tests.
• Collecting and reporting test results — The @test.report annotation can be used to specify the reporting format for a test. This can help ensure that the test results are consistent and easy to read.
• Integrate with continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines. The @test.publishResults annotation can be used to publish the test results to a CI/CD pipeline. This makes the test results available to other developers and stakeholders.

Annotations are a powerful tool that can be used to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of test automation. There are several commonly used annotations that can perform various tasks within the framework. It is always worth referring to the documentation to utilize time effectively.

describe - This function is used to group test cases into a test suite or test context. It allows for organizing and categorizing tests or scoping before/after hooks to the group.

test - The test annotation defines individual test cases. It can be used with other annotations to create a complete and robust testing suite.

beforeEach - Runs before each test case in the file. Used to set up common preconditions or context.

afterEach - This function runs after each test case in the test file. It is typically used for cleanup or teardown actions.

beforeAll - This function is executed once before all test cases in the test file. It is used for setting up global preconditions.

afterAll - This function is executed once after all test cases in the test file have been run. It is used for global cleanup or teardown actions.

The test.skip() function marks a test as irrelevant, and Playwright Test will not run tests with this annotation. Use it when a test is not applicable in certain configurations. Conditionally skipping tests is also possible.

Using test.fail() marks a test as failing, and Playwright Test will run the test and ensure that it does indeed fail. If it does not fail, the Playwright Test will report an error.

The test.fixme() mark indicates that the test is failing. Playwright Test will skip this test, unlike the fail annotation. Use fixme when running the test is slow or crashes.

The test.slow() function marks the test as slow and triples the test timeout.

test.only() allows you to focus on specific tests. When there are focused tests, only those tests will run.

Playwright’s tag system allows for grouping tests into logical sets using the [grep] functionality, which searches descriptions that match a regular expression. Tags are defined using the @tag syntax and can be added to individual test cases or to groups of test cases using test.describe. Using tags helps keep tests organized and is especially useful when using grep.

To define the grep pattern, use -grep flag or grep property in the configuration file. You can also exclude tests that match the pattern with -grep-invert option or property.

npx playwright test --grep @fast //run only that test with tag @fast
npx playwright test --grep-invert @slow //skip the tests with tag @slow
npx playwright test --grep "@fast|@slow" //logical OR operator 
npx playwright test --grep "(?=.*@fast)(?=.*@slow)" //logical AND operator

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