Goldman Sachs Playwright Testing Interview Questions & Answers

Turn on trace: 'on-first-retry', open the trace viewer, check network and timing, replace hard waits with web-first assertions, isolate test data and check for sharding conflicts.

User-facing ones: getByRole, getByText, getByLabel, getByPlaceholder and getByTestId, which are more resilient than CSS or XPath.

Define projects for chromium, firefox and webkit in playwright.config.ts, set workers, then run: npx playwright test

Use device descriptors such as devices['iPhone 13'] in a project config to emulate viewport, user agent and touch.

await request.post('/api/users', { data: { name: 'Asha' } }) automatically sets JSON headers and serialises the payload.

Use the official Playwright image which contains browsers and dependencies, mount the project and run npx playwright test for consistent CI environments.

page.screenshot() for captures and config options use: { screenshot: 'only-on-failure', video: 'retain-on-failure' } for automatic evidence.

var is function-scoped and hoisted. let and const are block-scoped; const can't be reassigned (though an object it points to can change). Prefer const, then let.

click simulates a real user click with actionability checks; dispatchEvent fires a DOM event directly without those checks.

Playwright supports multiple browsers, tabs, languages and has auto-waiting and tracing; Selenium has the widest ecosystem; Cypress runs in-browser with a great UI but has more limits across tabs.

Record timestamps around the request or use response timing, then assert the duration is under an agreed threshold.

Use try-catch with await, or .catch() on promises, and make sure rejected promises are never left unhandled.

Create a class that takes a page, defines locators as properties and exposes action methods; instantiate it in a fixture for clean tests.

Set extraHTTPHeaders in the config or pass headers per request, for example Authorization: Bearer token fetched in a setup step.

Workflow: checkout → setup-node → npm ci → npx playwright install --with-deps → npx playwright test → upload playwright-report as an artifact.

Define an interface for the payload, cast or validate the parsed JSON to it (for example with zod), and use that type in assertions to catch shape changes.

await expect(page).toHaveScreenshot('home.png') compares against a baseline image; tune maxDiffPixels and mask dynamic areas like dates.

TypeScript adds static types on top of JavaScript and compiles to it. Types catch errors early and give better autocomplete, which helps in larger test suites.

npx playwright codegen records user actions and generates test code with suggested locators, handy for starting tests.

Playwright locators pierce open shadow roots by default, so getByRole and CSS locators work without special handling.

npm is the Node package manager. package.json lists the project's dependencies and scripts, such as the command that runs the tests.

Install the allure-playwright reporter, add it in the config reporters array and generate the report from the allure-results folder in CI.

POST the query and variables as JSON to the single endpoint and assert both data and errors fields in the response.

Click to open the control, then use getByRole('option') or a text locator for the target item, instead of relying on fragile index-based selectors.

JavaScript runs one call stack and uses queues for async work; the event loop pushes callbacks from the microtask (promises) and task queues when the stack is empty.

Use the request fixture: const res = await request.get('/api/users'); expect(res.ok()).toBeTruthy(); const body = await res.json();

Use request.post with multipart: { file: { name, mimeType, buffer } } and assert the response and stored file details.

A browser is the engine instance; a context is an isolated session (cookies, storage); a page is a tab inside a context.

TypeScript + POM + custom fixtures, environment configs, API helpers for test data, tags like @smoke, sharding across CI machines, retries with traces, HTML/Allure reports, lint and review rules.

Declarations of var and functions are moved to the top of their scope at compile time; let and const are hoisted but stay in the temporal dead zone until declared.

Use page.waitForResponse(res => res.url().includes('/api/orders') && res.ok()) together with the action that triggers it.

Functions that take other functions as arguments or return them, such as map, filter and reduce, or a helper that wraps retry logic around a test step.

In a fixture or beforeEach, call the API (request.post) to create the user or order, use it in the UI test, then delete it in teardown. It is faster and more reliable than creating data through the UI.

Files run in parallel by default; set workers in the config and use test.describe.configure({ mode: 'parallel' }) for tests inside a file.

Use page.frameLocator('#frame').getByRole(...) so actions work inside the iframe with auto-waiting.

Send invalid payloads or missing auth and assert 400, 401 or 404 codes and the error message bodies.

An object describing how to find an element, re-evaluated on every action so it always targets the current DOM.

Syntax over Promises: an async function returns a Promise and await pauses until it resolves. Every Playwright action returns a Promise, so you await each step.

Fetch tokens in a fixture with expiry tracking and refresh it when it is about to expire, keeping tests unaware of the details.

Set them in the context options (geolocation, permissions, timezoneId, locale) to simulate users from other regions.

Assertions like expect(locator).toBeVisible() that retry until they pass or time out, unlike one-off checks.

const [newPage] = await Promise.all([ context.waitForEvent('page'), page.getByText('Open').click(), ]); await newPage.waitForLoadState();

It records screenshots, DOM snapshots, network calls and actions per step so you can replay a failed run and see exactly what happened.

waitForSelector is a lower-level wait; locator assertions are preferred as they retry and are more readable.

beforeEach runs the same code before every test in scope; fixtures are lazy, composable and only set up what a test uses.

A class receives page in its constructor, stores locators as properties and exposes actions like login(user, pass). Tests call page objects, not raw locators.

Before acting, Playwright waits for the element to be attached, visible, stable, enabled and able to receive events — so manual waits are rarely needed.

test.step groups actions into named steps in reports; annotations such as test.skip, test.fixme and test.slow communicate intent and adjust behaviour.

Use timeout and expect.timeout in config, test.setTimeout() for one test and test.slow() for known slower tests.

Separate tests, page objects, fixtures, utilities, test data and config; use tags, projects, shared auth setup, linting, code review and a CI pipeline with sharding and reports.

Auto-waiting, a built-in test runner, Chromium/Firefox/WebKit with one API, network interception, the trace viewer and parallel runs out of the box — usually faster and less flaky.

Use expect(page).toHaveScreenshot() to compare with stored baselines, with thresholds and masks for dynamic regions.

Scripts that run once before or after the whole run, for seeding data, starting services or creating authentication state.

Use npx playwright test --shard=1/4 in each CI job and merge reports afterwards to reduce total run time.

await page.route('**/api/users', route => route.fulfill({ status: 200, json: [{ id: 1, name: 'Test' }] }) );

test('login', async ({ page }) => { await page.goto('/login'); await page.getByLabel('Email').fill('a@b.com'); await page.getByLabel('Password').fill('secret'); await page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Login' }).click(); await expect(page.getByRole('heading', { name: 'Dashboard' })).toBeVisible(); });

all waits for every promise and rejects on the first failure; allSettled waits for all and reports each outcome; race settles with the first one to finish.

Rely on auto-waiting plus a web-first assertion on the final state, disable animations in config for tests and avoid fixed timeouts.

await expect.soft(locator).toHaveText('...') records the failure but lets the test continue, so you see every mismatch in one run.

Reusable setup/teardown units injected into tests (page, context, request). You can extend test with custom fixtures such as loggedInPage.

obj?.a?.b safely reads nested properties and returns undefined instead of throwing if something in the chain is missing.

Strings in backticks that allow embedded expressions like `Hello ${name}` and multi-line text, useful for building dynamic locators and URLs.

Wait for the popup event with const [popup] = await Promise.all([page.waitForEvent('popup'), page.click('a')]), then interact with popup.

An open-source end-to-end testing framework from Microsoft that automates Chromium, Firefox and WebKit through one API, in multiple languages.

Run npm init playwright@latest, which sets up config, example tests and browsers; execute with npx playwright test.

Assert the status with expect(res.status()).toBe(200), parse res.json() and check fields, using schema validation for the structure.

Log in once in a setup project, save storageState to a file and reuse it in other projects or tests.

Named configurations that run the same tests across different browsers, devices or environments.

A Locator is lazy, re-resolved on every action and auto-waits (recommended). An ElementHandle points to one DOM node and can go stale.

Placeholders for types that make reusable code type-safe, for example a helper function returning the same type of item that it receives.

Integrate axe-core through @axe-core/playwright, run an analysis on the page and assert that there are no violations.

Use environment variables or .env files, a baseURL in config, API calls for setup and cleanup, and unique data per run.

Log in with request.post, call request.storageState(), and create a browser context using that state.