Running Tests with Playwright Test Explorer and Generating Tests with Codegen

Finding the best locator for a web element can be a hassle:

• Right clicking on an element in Google Chrome. Inspecting the element. Going to Chrome Developer Tools. Try to decide what to do if there isn't a clear test id. 

Playwright comes with a built in code generator where it can built out a rough draft of a test while you interact with a website. "Playwright will look at your page and figure out the best locator, prioritizing role, text and test id locators. If the generator finds multiple elements matching the locator, it will improve the locator to make it resilient that uniquely identify the target element", according to Playwright.dev / Test Generator.

Do you have the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) by Microsoft, VS Code? You can get it at the Visual Studio Marketplace. 

Playwright Test Explorer

• Playwright.dev / Getting Started VS Code: https://playwright.dev/docs/getting-started-vscode

After installation, you will see a beaker icon in your VS Code left navigation menu. Selecting that, you can see your tests, such as the default ones Playwright automatically adds when it is installed: 

Checking code with lint, formatting it with prettier

Now that we've installed bun, Anthropic's package manager, scaffolded a Playwright framework and closely examined the results, and added typechecking with TypeScript's compiler, it's time to add ways to check the code with lint, and reformat the code with prettier. 

We will be using:

• ESLint, as the static-analysis tool to review the code without running it. Little bits of fluff -- like syntax errors, structural bugs, anti-patterns, and code style violations -- can collect on your code, so it helps to run a linter to help catch it all, such as ESLint. There is also a linter,  eslint-plugin-playwright, for Playwright tests.
• Prettier enforces a consistent code style across your entire codebase. Because ESLint and Prettier can conflict, we will be using Prettier's eslint-config-prettier, which turns off all rules that are unnecessary or might conflict with ESLint.

What is a Linter? 

According to the Wikiwand entry for Lint, "Stephen C. Johnson, a computer scientist at Bell Labs, came up with the term 'lint' in 1978 while debugging the yacc grammar he was writing for C and dealing with portability issues stemming from porting Unix to a 32-bit machine. The term was borrowed from lint, the tiny bits of fiber and fluff shed by clothing, as the command he wrote would act like a lint trap in a clothes dryer, capturing waste fibers while leaving whole fabrics intact. The lint program was released outside of Bell Labs in Unix V7, in 1979.

"In his 1978 paper, Johnson explained his reasons for creating a new program to detect errors: '...the general notion of having two programs is a good one' because they concentrate on different things, thereby allowing the programmer to 'concentrate at one stage of the programming process solely on the algorithms, data structures, and correctness of the program, and then later retrofit, with the aid of lint, the desirable properties of universality and portability' "

Add Type Checking and TSConfig to Bun-Create-Playwright

Now that we have installed bun, Anthropic's package manager, and scaffolded a Playwright framework and closely examined the results, we are going to explore with our Bun-Create-Playwright project ways to check if our code is correct. 

The first method we will be exploring is typechecking. 

Why Typechecking? As the Playwright.dev / Node.js Introduction mentions:

"[...] Playwright does not check the types and will run tests even if there are non-critical TypeScript compilation errors. We recommend you run TypeScript compiler alongside Playwright.

"[...] Note that Playwright only supports the following tsconfig options: allowJs, baseUrl, paths, references and extends.

"[...] By default, Playwright will look up a closest tsconfig for each imported file by going up the directory structure and looking for tsconfig.json or jsconfig.json. This way, you can create a tests/tsconfig.json file that will be used only for your tests and Playwright will pick it up automatically".

Before we go further down this road...

What is Type Checking? 

According to Type Checking in TypeScript: A Beginners Guide, every piece of data in TypeScript is given a "type", and this "type" determines what properties the data has, and what methods are available to it. The types can be things like a Number, String, Enum, Boolean, Array, Object, Type assertions, or others.

What happens when you scaffold a Playwright framework and run installed tests using bun?

We covered in the last blog post how to install bun, a new package manager. 

In this blog post, we will look into using bun to install a new Playwright framework. 

Create the Playwright Framework

Once I installed bun on my Windows PC and was up and running I created a new folder, "bun-create-playwright".

I opened up that folder in VS Code, along with a new PowerShell terminal. In that terminal I entered:

• bun create playwright 

This activated the interactive Playwright installer that Playwright comes with. 

• I selected I wanted it to create for me a TypeScript project, placing the tests in the default folder, tests, but I decided not to add a GitHub Actions workflow. I wanted to experiment with using GitLab. 
• I chose it to set up and install all the browsers for me... which it did... using NPX, part of Node.

Wait a second, when it comes to our Playwright framework, doesn't bun replace node?

No. Bun might be a JavaScript runtime, a package manager, and a bundler shipped as a single software tool, but in our case we are simply using it as a package manager in our Playwright framework. 

Bun works alongside Node.js in the Playwright project. We still use Playwright's test runner, a Node.js program. Bun handles installations and run tasks.

Introducing bun, a new package manager and JavaScript runtime environment

New job? New toolset to explore! In this post I'll be investigating a new JavaScript package manager and runtime environment called bun.sh. 

You may have noticed on Playwright.Dev's Getting Started / Installation section there are three different ways to install a ui or api test automation framework with the latest version of Playwright:

• npm init playwright@latest
• yarn create playwright
• pnpm create playwright

For this blog post I'll be investigating a fourth way, the new toolset they just started using at work, bun.sh.

• bun create playwright

What is npm, yarn, pnpm, and bun? These are called package managers.

What is a package? Developing a project, you don't have to figure out how to code everything yourself. You can include in your projects outside libraries, or "packages" of code from from the public JavaScript registry npmjs.com. 

The problem is that these packages then need to be downloaded, installed, managed, and updated whenever they are updated. JavaScript projects can use a package manager, such as bun, to help this process. 

When putting together a Playwright automation framework based around JavaScript and TypeScript, Playwright uses the Node.js JavaScript runtime environment, to run its test runner, execute automation scripts, and manage its browser instances.(See Nodejs.org / About )

There is a division of labor: Node.js runs these internal functions like running tests. NPM, Yarn, PNPM, and now Bun handle the packages. 

Why are there so many package managers? Each has its own specialization. The original NPM is bundled already with Node.js. Yarn is a Facebook toolset that was created when NPM was found to work too slow. PNPM was created to be smaller and therefore faster. And bun was built for quick startup and installation speed, good especially if you have a CI/ CD pipeline that has a LOT of packages to install each time the tests run.

Does giving a presentation via Zoom to the Sydney Testers Meetup make me an international speaker?

If I presentation to the Sydney Testers Meetup in Australia, from my home in the Massachusetts, through Zoom, does that make me an international speaker? [ Vote in the New Poll, on LinkedIn ]

There is still time to sign up for the event at: https://www.meetup.com/sydney-testers/events/315166776


"T.J. Maher, the former organiser at Ministry of Testing Boston, blogger and speaker, will be presenting from the US on using the Detox framework to create effective test automation frameworks for React Native applications.

Achievement Unlocked: T.J. Maher Elected to the Board of Directors of the Software Quality Group of New England - SQGNE.org

I've been elected to be on the Board of Directors of the Software Quality Group of New England (sqgne.org) on the volunteer leadership committee! 

The Software Quality Group of New England (SQGNE) is an all-volunteer, nonprofit professional community in New England dedicated to software quality. Since its founding, SQGNE has brought together QA engineers, SDETs, and software quality professionals for monthly educational presentations, discussions, and networking -- covering everything from testing techniques and process improvement to the latest tools and industry trends.

I also have founded and moderate an online monthly SDET Lean Coffee discussion group, bringing together software development engineers in test, quality engineers, and automation practitioners to exchange ideas, challenges, and emerging practices.

After our hiatus during the summer, we will be meeting monthly up in Burlington, MA. Check us out!

Happy Testing!

-T.J. Maher
Software Engineer in Test

BlueSky | YouTube | LinkedIn | Articles

Testing and AI Workshop by James Bach of Rapid Software Testing - Notes

Last week, I saw that there was a new half day workshop by one of the creators of Rapid Software Testing, James Bach, Testing and AI Workshop, and that they were offering a 50% discount for anyone who was unemployed, so I just had to attend.

• Visit James Bach's Satisfice.com Download Page to download PDFs on topics such as Responsible Work (May 2026), AI Writing Policy (April 2026), Heuristic Test Strategy Model (December 2024), Rapid Software Testing Explored Class Appendices (December 2024) Why Testers? (Oct 2024) and ChatGPT Sucks at Being a Testing Expert (August 2023)
• YouTube Channel: Rapid Software Testing
• Check out James Bach's Classes at https://www.satisfice.com/classes (50% discount if unemployed)
• The next Testing and AI Workshop will be July 6, 2026

"In each session, the instructors will first perform a live 'testopsy.' This is a demonstration of AI-assisted testing (using both assistive and agentic modes of AI) on a real product, accompanied by an analysis and explanation of what happened during the demo. During this part of the workshop, you may ask questions or offer critique.

"Next the instructors will challenge you to perform a similar process or solve a similar problem with the help of AI. You will have two hours. You will be able to work alone or in groups, as you like.

"Finally, the instructors will review and critique your work, if you choose to share it. At the end of the event, you will get to keep the videos".

I really enjoyed the class! It involved an hour-and-a-half webinar, where James Bach walks people though how he uses AI, a few hours where you can work on your own project for the course, then another hour-and-a-half webinar where course attendees could review what they came up with to analyze a site. 

New Position Unlocked: Senior SDET at AAA Life Insurance, starting Monday, June 15th, 2026!

I have two announcements: I've accepted a job offer as a Senior SDET role at AAA Life Insurance Company, and will be starting Monday, June 15th! And I have been nominated to be one of the volunteer Directors on the leadership board of the Software Quality Group of New England.

Man, the job market is brutal! It took me four months of job searching in 2025 to find SELF Id when MassMutual outsourced its technology department. And it took me four months of near constant job searching in 2026 to find AAA Life when I was caught up in the second round of SELF's layoffs in the end of January.

SDET Lean Coffee #1: With AI, what is useful testing and what is workslop? SQGNE, June 2, 2026

With AI, what is useful when it comes to testing and what is workslop? How do you create workflows in AI? With AI producing massive amounts of code, how can a tester keep up?

These are some of the topics attendees decided to talk about in our first ever SDET Lean Coffee, as part of the Software Quality Group of New England ( sqgne.org ). We exchanged war stories, horror stories, shared insights, and provided a bit of group therapy as we talked about the stress involved being the main support role of the software development team.

A surprise guest was Lisa Crispin (LisaCrispin.com), author of "Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams". Lisa has been working with DORA, Google Cloud's DevOps Research and Assessment division.

Recently, Lisa gave a talk teaming up with the "Beyond Quality" podcast, sharing what she has been doing "AI, testing, and the DORA AI Capabilities Model" at Lisa's site at https://lisacrispin.com/2026/04/20/ai-testing-and-the-dora-ai-capabilities-model/ discussing:

• The Dora AI Capabilitues Model
• How we need to test AI agents since AI agents can degrade over time

What is a "Lean Coffee"?

"Lean Coffee is a structured, but agenda-less meeting. Participants gather, build an agenda, and begin talking. Conversations are directed and productive because the agenda for the meeting was democratically generated". This format arose over fifteen years ago, when "Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith wanted to start a group that would discuss Lean techniques in knowledge work – but didn’t want to start a whole new cumbersome organization with steering committees, speakers, and such. They wanted a group that did not rely on anything other than people showing up and wanting to learn or create", according to LeanCoffee.org.

When Is The Next SDET Lean Coffee? 

SDET Lean Coffees for the SQGNE will (usually) be held the first Tuesday of each month at 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm EDT.

Interested in attending the next session Tuesday, July 7th?

Register at the Software Quality Group of New England website at https://www.sqgne.org/

Happy Testing!
-T.J. Maher
Software Engineer in Test

BlueSky | YouTube | LinkedIn | Articles