Browsers and assertions

Install the Playwright browser binaries once after requiring the package:

vendor/bin/playwright-install --browsers

Use vendor/bin/playwright-install --with-deps --browsers on a fresh Linux CI runner to install the required system libraries as well. Playwright caches matching Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit binaries outside the project and reuses them between runs.

Create a browser

Use self::application()->createBrowser() in existing-application tests and self::managedEdition()->createBrowser() in Managed Edition tests. Firefox is the default. Select Chromium or WebKit with BrowserType:

use Contao\E2eTesting\Browser\BrowserType;

$browser = self::application()->createBrowser(BrowserType::Chromium);
$browser->visit('/');
$this->assertSelectorExists('h1');
$this->assertSelectorTextContains('h1', 'Welcome');

Put the use statements at the top of your test file and the browser actions inside a test method. The selector helpers use the most recently created browser session. Use $browser->page() for Playwright locators, $browser->context() for context operations and $browser->uri('/login') to construct a URL. Relative paths are appended to the configured application base path. An absolute HTTP or HTTPS URL is used as supplied.

Each browser call creates an independent context with its own cookies and storage. Represent two users by creating two sessions and using their pages directly. Playwright locators wait automatically for actionable elements, so assertions do not need fixed sleeps.

Set the browser language

Use BrowserOptions to send an Accept-Language header with browser requests. The same options work in both testing modes:

use Contao\E2eTesting\Browser\BrowserOptions;

$options = BrowserOptions::create()->withAcceptLanguage('de-CH,de,en');
$backend = self::managedEdition()->createBackendBrowser(options: $options);
// The header works with Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit.

See Contao backend interactions, Playwright options and traces for more control.