End-to-End Testing With Playwright

Component tests verify that individual pieces work. End-to-end tests verify that the entire application works — from the browser through the server to the database and back. When a user clicks "Sign Up," fills in their details, and expects to land on a dashboard, an E2E test proves that actually happens.

Playwright is the modern standard for E2E testing. It's fast, reliable, and supports Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit from a single test suite.

Setup

npm init playwright@latest

The installer creates:

playwright.config.ts      # Configuration
tests/                    # Test directory
  example.spec.ts         # Example test
tests-results/            # Test output (gitignored)

A minimal config for a Next.js project:

// playwright.config.ts
import { defi