Playwright Files

🌐 HAR recording on Tracing

tracing.startHar() (playwright.dev) / tracing.stopHar() (playwright.dev) expose HAR recording as a first-class tracing API, with the same content, mode and urlFilter options as recordHar. The returned Disposable makes it easy to scope a recording with await using:

:::js
await using har = await context.tracing.startHar('trace.har');
const page = await context.newPage();
await page.goto('https://playwright.dev');
// HAR is finalized when `har` goes out of scope.

🪝 Drop API

New locator.drop() (playwright.dev) simulates an external drag-and-drop of files or clipboard-like data onto an element. Playwright dispatches dragenter, dragover, and drop with a synthetic [DataTransfer] in the page context — works cross-browser and is great for testing upload zones:

:::js
await page.locator('#dropzone').drop({
  files: { name: 'note.txt', mimeType: 'text/plain', buffer: Buffer.from('hello') },
});

await page.locator('#dropzone').drop({
  data: {
    'text/plain': 'hello world',
    'text/uri-list': 'https://example.com',
  },
});

🎯 Aria snapshots

• expect(page).toMatchAriaSnapshot() now works on a Page, in addition to a Locator — equivalent to asserting against page.locator('body').
• New boxes option on locator.ariaSnapshot() (playwright.dev) / page.ariaSnapshot() (playwright.dev) appends each element's bounding box as [box=x,y,width,height], useful for AI consumption.

🛑 test.abort()

New test.abort() (playwright.dev) aborts the currently running test from a fixture, hook, or route handler with an optional message. Use it when you have detected an unrecoverable misuse and want to fail the test right away:

:::js
test('does not publish to the shared page', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.route('**/publish', route => {
    test.abort('Tests must not publish to the shared page. Use the `clone` option.');
    return route.abort();
  });
  // ...
});

New APIs

Browser, Context and Page

• Event browser.on('context') (playwright.dev) — fired when a new context is created on the browser.
• BrowserContext now mirrors lifecycle events from its pages: browserContext.on('download') (playwright.dev), browserContext.on('frameattached') (playwright.dev), browserContext.on('framedetached') (playwright.dev), browserContext.on('framenavigated') (playwright.dev), browserContext.on('pageclose') (playwright.dev), browserContext.on('pageload') (playwright.dev).

Locators and Assertions

• New option description in page.getByRole() (playwright.dev) / locator.getByRole() (playwright.dev) / frame.getByRole() (playwright.dev) / frameLocator.getByRole() (playwright.dev) for matching the accessible description.
• New option pseudo in expect(locator).toHaveCSS() reads computed styles from ::before or ::after.
• New option style in locator.highlight() (playwright.dev) applies extra inline CSS to the highlight overlay, plus new page.hideHighlight() (playwright.dev) to clear all highlights.

Network

• webSocketRoute.protocols() (playwright.dev) returns the WebSocket subprotocols requested by the page.
• New option noDefaults in browserType.connectOverCDP() (playwright.dev) disables Playwright's default overrides on the default context (download behavior, focus emulation, media emulation), so attaching to a user's daily-driver browser doesn't disturb its state.

Errors and Reporting

• New webError.location() (playwright.dev) mirrors consoleMessage.location() (playwright.dev).
• consoleMessage.location() (playwright.dev) now exposes line / column properties (lineNumber / columnNumber are deprecated).
• New testInfoError.errorContext (playwright.dev) surfaces additional diagnostic context, such as the aria snapshot of the receiver at the time of an expect(...) matcher failure.
• reporter.onError() (playwright.dev) now receives a workerInfo argument with details about the worker for fixture teardown errors.

Test runner

• New {testFileBaseName} token in testProject.snapshotPathTemplate (playwright.dev) — file name without extension.
• Test runner now errors when a config tries to override a non-option fixture, and rejects workers: 0 or negative values.

🛠️ Other improvements

• HTML reporter:
• npx playwright show-report accepts .zip files directly — no need to unzip first.
• Steps that contain attachments inside nested children show an indicator on the parent step.
• The repeatEachIndex is shown in the test header when non-zero.
• Trace Viewer adds a pretty-print toggle for JSON / form request and response bodies in the network details panel.

Breaking Changes ⚠️

• Removed long-deprecated APIs:
• Locator.ariaRef() — use the standard locator.ariaSnapshot() (playwright.dev) pipeline.
• handle option on BrowserContext.exposeBinding and Page.exposeBinding.
• logger option on BrowserType.connect and BrowserType.connectOverCDP — use tracing instead.
• Context options videosPath / videoSize — use recordVideo instead.

Browser Versions

• Chromium 148.0.7778.96
• Mozilla Firefox 150.0.2
• WebKit 26.4

This version was also tested against the following stable channels:

• Google Chrome 147
• Microsoft Edge 147