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Features

playwright-tui provides a comprehensive terminal dashboard for monitoring Playwright test runs.

Dashboard Layout​

The TUI is organized into several panels that update in real time.

Header Bar​

Displays key information about the current run:

  • Playwright version detected from your project
  • Browser targets (chromium, firefox, webkit)
  • Configured worker count
  • Running/idle status indicator

Stats Bar​

A single-line summary of test execution:

  • TOTAL -- number of tests discovered
  • PASS -- tests that passed as expected
  • FAIL -- tests with unexpected failures
  • SKIP -- skipped tests
  • RETRY -- number of retry attempts
  • ELAPSED -- wall-clock time since run started

Progress Bar​

A block-character progress bar showing overall completion percentage with a numeric readout (e.g., 42% ████████░░░░░░░░░░ 21/50).

Spec Files Panel​

A selectable list of test files with:

  • Status icon -- checkmark (passed), cross (failed), circle (running), dot (pending)
  • Mini progress bar -- color-coded segments for passed (green), failed (red), skipped (yellow), and pending (gray) tests within each file
  • Completion count -- e.g., 3/5

Use Up/Down or j/k to navigate; the panel scrolls automatically to keep the selection visible.

Recent Activity Stream​

A timestamped log of recently completed tests with status icons:

  • ✓ passed (green)
  • ✗ failed (red)
  • ⊘ skipped (yellow)
  • ↻ flaky (magenta)
  • ⧖ timed out (red)
  • ! interrupted (yellow)

Each entry shows the test name and duration.

Worker Panel​

Displays per-worker status in a table format:

ColumnDescription
#Worker index
TESTCurrently executing test name
FILETest file path
TIMELive duration since test started

Idle workers show a dot indicator; active workers show a circle spinner.

Failures Panel​

Lists failed tests with expandable detail cards. Press Enter on a selected failure to expand it and see:

  • Error message -- the first line of the error
  • Expected/Actual -- matcher comparison values when available
  • Stack trace -- up to 6 lines of stack trace with syntax highlighting for .spec. and .ts: files

Use Tab to switch focus between the spec files panel and failures panel.

Summary Panel​

Toggle with s to show/hide a summary overlay displaying:

  • Final stats (total, pass, fail, skip, retry)
  • Top 3 failed tests with file paths
  • Top 3 slowest tests with durations

ETA Estimation​

playwright-tui uses a persisted timing history to estimate remaining time.

How it works​

  1. On each test completion, the actual duration is recorded
  2. Durations are stored in ~/.config/playwright-tui/history.json
  3. The algorithm uses exponential moving averages (EMA) weighted over up to 50 runs per test
  4. For new tests without history, the median duration of all known tests is used as a fallback
  5. ETA combines prediction-weighted progress with count-based progress for accuracy

Configuration​

  • --history / --no-history -- enable or disable timing persistence
  • --history-file <path> -- specify a custom history file location
  • Respects XDG_CONFIG_HOME for the default path

Filter Mode​

Press f to enter filter mode. Type a search string and press Enter to apply. The filter narrows:

  • Spec files panel (matches against file paths)
  • Recent activity stream (matches against test title, file, or project)
  • Failures panel (matches against title, file, project, or error message)

Press Esc to cancel without applying. An asterisk (*) appears next to the filter keybind when a filter is active.

Watch Mode​

Press w to toggle watch mode. When enabled, the next run will include --watch in the Playwright arguments, causing Playwright to re-run tests when source files change.

Rerun Controls​

  • r -- rerun only failed tests (uses --last-failed flag)
  • a -- rerun all tests

Both display a flash notification confirming the action. If a run is already in progress, a warning flash is shown instead.

Headless Mode​

When playwright-tui detects that stdin or stdout is not a TTY, it automatically switches to a compact text-based output suitable for CI environments. Progress lines are printed on each test completion with pass/fail/skip counts and ETA.