Debugging Tools in Playwright

From the Playwright cheat sheet · Debugging & Trace Viewer · verified Jul 2026

Debugging Tools

Use UI mode, trace viewer, and headed mode to debug tests

bash

# Run in UI mode (interactive debugging)
npx playwright test --ui

# Run with browser visible
npx playwright test --headed

# Run with trace recording
npx playwright test --trace on

# View trace file
npx playwright show-trace trace.zip

💡 UI mode is the best debugging experience — shows DOM snapshots at every step

⚡ Use page.pause() in your test code to open the Inspector at a specific point

📌 Traces capture screenshots, DOM snapshots, network, and console logs for every action

🟢 Upload trace.zip to trace.playwright.dev to share with teammates — no install needed

debugtraceui-mode

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