How do I configure Playwright to use a specific browser instance on Jenkins using the PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH environment variable?

Answer

To configure Playwright to use a specific browser instance on Jenkins, you can set the PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH environment variable. This variable tells Playwright where to find the browser binaries on your Jenkins system.

Here's how you can set the environment variable:

1. First, find the path to your browser binaries on the Jenkins system. For example, it might be /path/to/your/browsers.

2. Next, set the PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH environment variable to the browser binaries path. You can do this in your Jenkins pipeline script or directly in the Jenkins job configuration.

In your Jenkins pipeline script, you can set the environment variable like this:

pipeline {
  environment {
    PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH = '/path/to/your/browsers'
  }
  // Rest of your pipeline configuration
}

Alternatively, you can set the environment variable in the Jenkins job configuration:

1. Go to your Jenkins job configuration page.
2. Under the "Build Environment" section, check the "Inject environment variables to the build process" option.
3. Add a new entry with the name PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH and the value /path/to/your/browsers.

Now, when you run your Playwright tests on Jenkins, it will use the browser binaries specified in the PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH environment variable. This allows you to have more control over the browser versions used in your tests and ensures consistency across your test runs.

For more information on Playwright testing, check out our blog posts, such as Mastering Playwright Test Automation: Your Comprehensive Cheat Sheet and Maximizing Test Efficiency with Parallelism in Playwright.