🌐 HAR recording on Tracing

tracing.startHar() / tracing.stopHar() 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:

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() 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:

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() / page.ariaSnapshot() appends each element's bounding box as [box=x,y,width,height], useful for AI consumption.

🛑 test.abort()

New test.abort() 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:

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

Locators and Assertions

• New option description in page.getByRole() / locator.getByRole() / frame.getByRole() / frameLocator.getByRole() 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() applies extra inline CSS to the highlight overlay, plus new page.hideHighlight() to clear all highlights.

Network

• webSocketRoute.protocols() returns the WebSocket subprotocols requested by the page.
• New option noDefaults in browserType.connectOverCDP() 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() mirrors consoleMessage.location().
• consoleMessage.location() now exposes line / column properties (lineNumber / columnNumber are deprecated).
• New testInfoError.errorContext surfaces additional diagnostic context, such as the aria snapshot of the receiver at the time of an expect(...) matcher failure.
• reporter.onError() now receives a workerInfo argument with details about the worker for fixture teardown errors.

Test runner

• New {testFileBaseName} token in testProject.snapshotPathTemplate — 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() 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