Playwright Automation Quick-Start Runbook: Setup, Execution, and Environment Config

Having a clear runbook speeds up onboarding for new team members and provides a standardized execution reference for CI/CD environments. Here is a quick-start automation runbook covering prerequisites, environment variables, execution commands, and output artifacts for a Playwright test suite. Prerequisites Node.js: 24.x (configured via package.json engines) Package Manager: npm Optional: Docker (for containerized pipeline runs) Quick Setup # 1. Install project dependencies cd <repo-root> npm ci # 2. Install Playwright browsers and dependencies npx playwright install --with-deps Execution Commands Full Test Suite: npm test (executes run-all-tests.js) API Suite Only: npm run test:api (executes run-api-tests.js) UI Suite Only: npm run test:ui (executes run-ui-tests.js) Generate Reports: npm run generate:reports Core Environment Variables Configure these keys inside your local .env file or CI secrets: API_BASE_URL — Base endpoint URL for API testing BASE_URL — Target website base URL for UI testing RETRY_COUNT — Maximum retry limit for flaky scenario reruns CUCUMBER_PARALLEL — Number of parallel workers for Cucumber execution Test Artifacts & Outputs Allure Execution Results: reports/allure-results Cucumber JSON Reports: reports/cucumber_report.json Failure Media (Videos/Screenshots): test-results/ (configured via config.js)