Playwright Advanced Configuring

Environment Variable Expansion

All values in your saucectl configuration support environment variable expansion. $var in config.yml will be replaced according to your shell's environment variables. References to undefined variables will be replaced with an empty string.

Predefined Environment Variables

The following environment variables are available during test execution.

Environment Variable	Description
SAUCE_JOB_ID	Job ID
SAUCE_SUITE_NAME	Suite Name
SAUCE_ARTIFACTS_DIRECTORY	Absolute path to the artifacts directory. Files placed in this folder are persisted with the Job.

Tailoring Your Test File Bundle

The saucectl command line bundles your root directory (rootDir parameter of config.yml) and transmits it to the Sauce Labs cloud or your own infrastructure via Docker, then unpacks the bundle and runs the tests. This functionality is partly what allows Sauce Control to operate in a framework-agnostic capacity. However, you can and should manage the inclusion and exclusion of files that get bundled to optimize performance and ensure security.

Excluding Files from the Bundle

The .sauceignore file allows you to designate certain files to be excluded from bundling.

Add any files that are not direct test dependencies to .sauceignore to reduce the size of your bundle, improve test speed, and protect sensitive information.

Examples of what can be included in .sauceignore:

# .sauceignore

# Ignore node_modules
node_modules/

# Ignore all log files
*.log

# Ignore executables/binaries
*.exe
*.bin
**/*/bin

# Ignore media files
*.png
*.jpeg
*.jpg
*.mp4

# Ignore documentation
*.rst
*.md

# Ignore sensitive data
credentials.yml

Sometimes it's easier to do the inverse: Including files for the bundle.

# Ignore all files by default.
/*

# Re-include files we selectively want as part of the payload by prefixing the lines with '!'.
!/node_modules
!/cypress
!cypress.config.js

# Since the whole '/cypress' folder is now included, this would also include any
# subdirectories that potentially contain auto-generated test artifacts from
# the local dev environment.
# It'd be wasteful to include them in the payload, so let's ignore those subfolders.
/cypress/videos/
/cypress/results/
/cypress/screenshots/

Including Node Dependencies

The default .sauceignore file lists node_modules/ so locally installed node dependencies are excluded from the bundle. If your tests require node dependencies to run, you can either:

• Include node_modules with your bundle or
• Set NPM packages in config.yml

Remove "node_modules" from .sauceignore

Delete or comment out node_modules/ in your .sauceignore file to bundle your node dependencies. For example,

# Do NOT exclude node_modules from bundle
# node_modules/

Node dependencies can increase your bundle by potentially hundreds of megabytes, so consider including only the required dependencies rather than the entire node_modules directory. The following sections provide some methods for limiting the scope of dependencies you must include.

Install "devDependencies" Only

Consider only installing NPM devDependencies if your tests do not require all prod dependencies.

# Only install dev dependencies
npm install --only=dev

saucectl run

Uninstall Nonessential Dependencies

If your standard install includes dependencies that aren't needed to run your tests, uninstall them prior to bundling.

# Install node dependencies
npm ci # or "npm install"

# Remove unneeded dependencies
npm uninstall appium
npm uninstall express

saucectl run

Install Essential Dependencies Individually

If you know that your tests require only specific dependencies, install them individually instead of running npm install or npm ci.

# Install individual dependencies
npm install playwright-xpath
npm install @playwright/react

saucectl run

Set NPM Packages in config.yml

You can avoid installing or uninstalling dependencies prior to each bundling operation by defining a default set of NPM packages to install in your sauce configuration file using the npm parameter, as shown in the following example:

npm:
  registry: https://registry.npmjs.org
  packages:
    lodash: "4.17.20"
    "@babel/preset-typescript": "7.12"
    "@playwright/react": "^5.0.1"

Alternatively, you can let saucectl selectively include already installed dependencies from the node_modules folder.

npm:
  dependencies:
    - lodash

caution

This feature is highly experimental.

Attaching Test Assets

Any test assets created by your tests at runtime (such as logs, screenshots or reports) you wish to retain along with your test results must be placed in the __assets__ directory of your project root folder. On Sauce Labs VMs, this path is relative to the current working directory.

Screenshots not Viewable in UI

Test Screenshots uploaded to Sauce Labs are currently not viewable in Test Results screen of the Sauce Labs UI, but can be retrieved using the Get Job Asset File API. Alternatively, you can use the artifacts.download configuration parameter to download test assets to a local file upon completion of your test.

Nested Paths

Nested assets are stored flat in Sauce Labs. A test asset like __assets__/mylogs/log.txt would therefore be stored and available for download as log.txt. Please keep that in mind when creating custom assets, as examples like __assets__/mylogs/log.txt and __assets__/myotherlogs/log.txt would eventually collide when persisted.

Setting up a Proxy

If you need to go through a proxy server, you can set it through the following variables:

• HTTP_PROXY: Proxy to use to access HTTP websites
• HTTPS_PROXY: Proxy to use to access HTTPS websites

Docker Proxy Considerations

When running in docker-mode, saucectl still must reach the Sauce Labs platform get the latest docker image available or upload the test package to Sauce Cloud, and the docker container needs to access the tested website and Sauce Labs to upload results.

Therefore, you may be required to set the proxy twice, as shown in the following examples:

PS> $Env:HTTP_PROXY=http://my.proxy.org:3128/
PS> $Env:HTTPS_PROXY=http://my.proxy.org:3128/
PS> saucectl run -e HTTP_PROXY=${Env:HTTP_PROXY} -e HTTPS_PROXY=${Env:HTTPS_PROXY}

$> export HTTP_PROXY=http://my.proxy.org:3128/
$> export HTTPS_PROXY=http://my.proxy.org:3128/
$> saucectl run -e HTTP_PROXY=${HTTP_PROXY} -e HTTPS_PROXY=${HTTPS_PROXY}

Filtering Tests

Playwright supports filtering tests using the grep and grepInvert options.

Reporters

By default, playwright on Sauce Labs runs with these preconfigured reporters:

• list: Prints results to standard output.
• junit: Creates junit.xml files.
• @saucelabs/playwright-reporter: Sauce Lab's own reporter that routes test results to the Test Results page.

If you have a custom reporter, simply set it in your playwright.config.js/ts file:

const config: PlaywrightTestConfig = {
  reporter: [
    ['./fancy.reporter.ts'],
  ],
};

Your reporter runs automatically alongside our reporters. We do not filter out duplicate reporters, which also means that if you already have a list reporter set, you'd see twice the output.

If you'd like a different set of reporters when running on Sauce versus local, check the env variable SAUCE_VM. In the following example, if SAUCE_VM is set (which it will be when running on a Sauce Labs VM), then fancy.reporter.ts is used, otherwise just the built-in list reporter.

const config: PlaywrightTestConfig = {
  reporter: process.env.SAUCE_VM ? [
    ['./fancy.reporter.ts'],
  ] : 'list',
};

caution

A limitation on Sauce Labs exists with playwright 1.27.1 or below, where the user defined reporter is only honored when defined as an array: reporter: [['./fancy.reporter.ts']]. Using a string like reporter: './fancy.reporter.ts' would therefore always be ignored.