Go Beyond Built-In Retries in Playwright: Intelligent Retry Strategies Based on Error Types & Test Context

#playwright #typescript #automation #testing

In this post, we’ll go beyond Playwright’s built-in retries and explore how to implement custom retry logic based on:
• Error types
• Test metadata (like severity or tags)
• Dynamic thresholds (e.g., flaky test detection using error patterns)
Playwright lets you configure a retry count via retries in playwright.config.ts. This is great for quick fixes—but:
• It treats all failures equally (a timeout vs. a visual diff? same reaction).
• No understanding of test importance or severity.
• No room for intelligent decision making during the retry phase.

We’re going to fix that using a combination of:
• test.info()
• test.skip()
• Error pattern matching
• Conditional logic

Strategy Overview: Rethinking Retries

We’ll create a custom retry plugin that:
• Intercepts failed tests
• Analyzes test.info().errors
• Uses error types (e.g., timeout vs. network vs. assertion)
• Applies logic like:
“Retry only if it’s a network glitch and the test is not critical.”

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