Playwright Test Bootstrap

Playwright Test Bootstrap

Purpose

Scaffold a production-ready Playwright project or generate structured test files following best practices — organized for maintainability, reliability, and QA team reuse.

Input Accepted

• Request to init a new Playwright project from scratch
• Feature name or module to add tests for
• User Story or Gherkin scenarios to automate
• API endpoint to validate through UI + API setup
• Existing Playwright suite to extend

Project Structure (Full Bootstrap)

[project-name]/
├── playwright.config.ts
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
├── .env.example
├── .gitignore
├── tests/
│   ├── auth.setup.ts              ← API login + storage state setup
│   └── [module]/
│       └── [feature].spec.ts
├── pages/
│   └── [FeatureName]Page.ts       ← Page Object Model
└── utils/
    └── api-client.ts              ← API helper functions

Generation Process

Full Project Bootstrap — generates:

1. playwright.config.ts — config with projects, artifacts, retries, base URL
2. package.json — dependencies and run scripts
3. tsconfig.json — TypeScript configuration
4. .env.example — environment variable template
5. .gitignore — excludes artifacts, credentials, node_modules
6. tests/auth.setup.ts — API login + storage state bootstrap
7. utils/api-client.ts — reusable API helper functions
8. pages/TransferPage.ts — sample page object
9. Sample transfer spec ready to adapt to the target feature

Single Spec File — generates:

• test.describe() block for the feature
• beforeEach with navigation and stable setup
• test() blocks for Happy Path / Negative / Boundary cases
• Assertions with await expect(...) — never waitForTimeout()
• Stable locators with getByTestId() when available

Key Conventions

✅ For authenticated features, create auth state via API in setup — not via UI in every test
✅ Use getByTestId() or equally stable locators
✅ Use await expect(...) for web-first assertions
✅ Use test.describe() and test.step() for readable structure
✅ Avoid waitForTimeout() and brittle sleeps
✅ Keep each test independent and cleanup-friendly
✅ Store credentials and URLs in environment variables only

References

• references/playwright-conventions.md — selector, assertion, auth, and config rules
• references/page-object-pattern.md — Page Object Model implementation guide for Playwright
• examples/playwright.config.ts — production-ready configuration
• examples/auth.setup.ts — authenticated storage state example
• examples/transfer.spec.ts — complete spec file example
• scripts/init-project.sh — CLI scaffold script