Playwright Interview Questions

1. What is Playwright?

Answer:
Playwright is an open-source end-to-end automation framework developed by Microsoft. It supports Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit using a single API.

2. Why Playwright over Selenium?

PlaywrightSeleniumAuto waitsManual waits often neededFasterComparatively slowerMultiple browser contextsRequires separate browser instancesBuilt-in network mockingLimited supportBetter handling of modern SPAsMore configuration neededSupports Chromium, Firefox, WebKitBrowser driver dependent

3. Which browsers does Playwright support?

• Chromium
• Firefox
• WebKit
• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge

4. Difference between Browser, BrowserContext and Page?

Browser

• Actual browser instance.

BrowserContext

• Incognito session.
• Multiple contexts can exist in one browser.
• Page
• A single browser tab.

Browser
   |
   |-- Context1
   |      |
   |      |-- Page1
   |      |-- Page2
   |
   |-- Context2
          |
          |-- Page1

5. What is auto waiting?

Playwright automatically waits for:

• Element attached
• Visible
• Stable
• Enabled
• Receives events

Example:

await page.getByRole('button').click();

No explicit wait required.

6. What are Locators?

Locators are Playwright's recommended way to find elements.

Examples

page.locator()

page.getByRole()

page.getByText()

page.getByLabel()

page.getByPlaceholder()

page.getByTestId()

7. Which locator is preferred?

Priority

1. getByRole()
2. getByLabel()
3. getByPlaceholder()
4. getByText()
5. getByTestId()
6. CSS/XPath

8. Difference between locator() and $

locator()

• Lazy evaluation
• Auto wait
• Retry
• Recommended

page.$()

• Returns ElementHandle
• No retry
• Deprecated approach

9. Difference between fill() and type()

fill()

• Clears textbox first
• type()
• Types character by character

10. Difference between click() and dblclick()

await locator.click();
await locator.dblclick();

Intermediate Questions

11. How does Playwright handle synchronization?

Using

• Auto waiting
• expect()
• waitForSelector()
• waitForURL()
• waitForLoadState()

12. What are different wait methods?

waitForSelector()
waitForLoadState()
waitForTimeout()
waitForURL()
waitForEvent()
waitForResponse()
waitForRequest()

13. Why avoid waitForTimeout()?

Hard waits

• Slow execution
• Flaky tests

14. Difference between waitForSelector() and expect()

await page.waitForSelector('#msg');

Only waits.

await expect(locator).toBeVisible();

Waits + verifies.

15. How to upload a file?

await page.setInputFiles('input', 'sample.pdf');

16. Handle multiple tabs

const pagePromise = context.waitForEvent('page');
await page.click('#open');
const newPage = await pagePromise;

17. Handle alerts

page.on('dialog', async dialog => {
   await dialog.accept();
});

18. Handle frames

const frame =
page.frameLocator('#frame');
await frame.locator('#name').fill('Sunil');

19. Handle dropdown

await locator.selectOption('India');

20. Handle dynamic elements?

• Smart locators
• Auto waiting
• Relative locators
• Retry assertions

Advanced Questions

21. Explain Browser Context.

Each context is an isolated session.

Useful for

• Parallel execution
• Multiple users
• Incognito sessions

22. API Testing in Playwright

const request =
await playwright.request.newContext();
const response =
await request.get(url);

23. Mock API Response

await page.route(
'**/users',
route => route.fulfill({
status:200,
body:JSON.stringify(data)
}));

24. Block Network Calls

await page.route(
'**/*.png',
route => route.abort()
);

25. Capture Screenshot

await page.screenshot({
path:'home.png'
});

26. Record Video

use:{
video:'on'
}

27. Trace Viewer

use:{
trace:'on-first-retry'
}

Open

npx playwright show-trace trace.zip

28. Retry Failed Tests

retries:2

29. Parallel Execution

workers:4

30. Serial Execution

test.describe.configure({
mode:'serial'
});

Framework Questions

31. Explain your Playwright framework architecture.

Mention:

• Page Object Model
• Fixtures
• Utilities
• Config
• Test Data
• API Layer
• Reports
• CI/CD
• Logger

32. How do you manage test data?

• JSON
• CSV
• Excel
• Environment files

33. How do you execute different environments?

Using

.env.dev
.env.qa
.env.stage
.env.prod

34. Which reports have you used?

• HTML
• Allure
• JSON
• JUnit

35. CI/CD integration?

• Jenkins
• GitHub Actions
• Azure DevOps

36. How do you handle flaky tests?

• Stable locators
• Auto waits
• Retry
• Network mocking
• Proper assertions

37. Difference between Fixtures and Hooks?

Hooks

beforeEach()
afterEach()

Fixtures

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Reusable objects shared across tests.

38. Explain test.describe().

Groups related test cases.

39. Explain test.step().

Improves reporting.

40. Soft Assertion

await expect.soft(locator)
.toBeVisible();

Execution continues even if the assertion fails.

Coding Questions

Reverse string

function reverse(str){
return str.split('').reverse().join('');
}

Find duplicate array elements

const arr=[1,2,2,3,4,4];
const dup=arr.filter(
(item,index)=>
arr.indexOf(item)!==index
);

Count characters

const map={};
for(const c of str){
map[c]=(map[c]||0)+1;
}

Remove duplicates

[...new Set(arr)]

Sort numbers

arr.sort((a,b)=>a-b);

Scenario-Based Questions

1. How would you automate OTP login?
2. How would you test file downloads?
3. How do you handle CAPTCHA in automation?
4. How would you automate infinite scrolling?
5. How would you test a table with 10,000 rows?
6. How would you test a React application?
7. How do you handle shadow DOM?
8. How do you test WebSockets?
9. How do you verify emails received after registration?
10. How do you debug a flaky Playwright test?

1. How would you automate OTP login?

Expected Answer

OTP should not be automated by reading the actual SMS or email in UI automation because it depends on external systems and makes tests flaky.

Instead, I would use one of these approaches:

Approach 1 (Preferred) — Test Environment Bypass

Ask developers to provide:

• Static OTP
• API to fetch OTP
• Disable OTP in QA
• Test-only authentication endpoint

This is the most reliable approach.

Approach 2 — Read OTP from Database

If OTP is stored in DB:

const otp = await getOtpFromDB(phoneNumber);
await page.getByLabel('OTP').fill(otp);

Approach 3 — Read OTP from Email

Using Gmail API or MailSlurp.

const otp = await mailSlurp.getLatestOTP();

Approach 4 — Read OTP from SMS Service

Twilio API

AWS SNS

MessageBird

Interview Tip

“I avoid UI automation of actual SMS because it creates dependency on third-party services. I prefer backend APIs or test hooks.”

2. How would you test file downloads?

Playwright provides download events.

const downloadPromise =
page.waitForEvent('download');
await page.click('text=Download');
const download =
await downloadPromise;
await download.saveAs('downloads/report.pdf');

Validate

• File exists
• File name
• File size
• Extension
• Content

Example

expect(download.suggestedFilename())
.toContain('.pdf');

3. How do you handle CAPTCHA?

Never automate CAPTCHA.

CAPTCHA exists specifically to prevent automation.

Instead use

• Disable CAPTCHA in QA
• Test bypass token
• Whitelist automation IP
• Mock CAPTCHA validation

If interviewer insists

Google reCAPTCHA provides test keys.

Good interview answer

“CAPTCHA itself shouldn’t be automated. In QA we normally bypass it or mock its validation.”

4. How would you automate infinite scrolling?

Keep scrolling until no more content loads.

let previousHeight = 0;
while (true) {
const currentHeight =
await page.evaluate(() =>
document.body.scrollHeight);
if(currentHeight===previousHeight)
break;
previousHeight=currentHeight;
await page.evaluate(()=>
window.scrollTo(0,document.body.scrollHeight));
await page.waitForTimeout(1000);
}

Better approach

Wait for API response instead of timeout.

5. How would you test a table with 10,000 rows?

Never validate all rows.

Instead

• Pagination testing
• Search functionality
• Sorting
• Filtering
• Random sampling
• API validation

Example

const rows =
page.locator('table tbody tr');
await expect(rows)
.toHaveCount(50);

Validate backend data instead of every UI row.

Interview Tip

“UI should validate representative data while backend/API validates the full dataset.”

6. How would you test a React application?

Focus on

• Dynamic DOM updates
• Component rendering
• State changes
• API calls
• Loading spinner
• Lazy loading

Use

getByRole()
getByLabel()
getByTestId()

Avoid XPath.

React updates DOM frequently.

Use auto waiting.

Interview Tip

Prefer accessibility-based locators because they remain stable across UI changes.

7. How do you handle Shadow DOM?

Playwright automatically supports open Shadow DOM.

Example

await page
.locator('custom-element')
.locator('#submit')
.click();

or

page.locator(
'custom-element >> button');

Closed Shadow DOM cannot be accessed directly. In such cases, ask developers to expose test hooks or test the behavior through the public UI.

8. How do you test WebSockets?

Listen for WebSocket events.

page.on('websocket', ws => {
console.log(ws.url());
ws.on('framereceived',
data=>console.log(data));
ws.on('framesent',
data=>console.log(data));
});

Validate

• Connection established
• Correct messages
• Reconnection
• Error handling

9. How do you verify emails received after registration?

Preferred options

• MailSlurp
• MailHog
• Mailtrap
• Gmail API

Flow

Register User
↓
Wait for Email
↓
Open Email
↓
Validate Subject
↓
Validate Body
↓
Click Verification Link

Example

const email =
await mailSlurp.waitForLatestEmail();

Validate

• Subject
• Sender
• OTP
• Verification link

10. How do you debug a flaky Playwright test?

My debugging approach:

Step 1

Run headed

npx playwright test --headed

Step 2

Run in debug mode

npx playwright test --debug

Step 3

Trace Viewer

npx playwright show-trace trace.zip

Step 4

Record video

use:{
video:'retain-on-failure'
}

Step 5

Capture screenshots

await page.screenshot({
path:'failed.png'
});

Step 6

Check network requests

page.on('request', request => {
    console.log(request.url());
});
page.on('response', response => {
    console.log(response.status(), response.url());
});

Step 7

Inspect logs and console errors

page.on('console', msg => console.log(msg.text()));
page.on('pageerror', error => console.log(error.message));

Step 8

Look for common causes

• Unstable locators
• Hard waits (waitForTimeout)
• Missing assertions
• Race conditions
• Slow API responses
• Shared test data
• Tests that depend on execution order

Interview Summary (2-minute answer)

If asked, “How do you debug flaky tests?”, you can answer:

“I first reproduce the issue by running the test in headed and debug mode. Then I use Playwright Trace Viewer, videos, screenshots, browser console logs, and network logs to identify where it fails. I verify whether the failure is due to unstable locators, synchronization issues, slow APIs, or shared test data. I replace hard waits with Playwright’s auto-waiting and assertion mechanisms, use resilient locators like getByRole or getByTestId, and isolate tests to ensure they are independent. This systematic approach helps eliminate flakiness rather than just masking it with retries."