The Tool Desk
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What do you mean by “record a browser automation session”?
Before setting anything up, decide what you need to keep after the browser run. A visual recording helps someone watch the page as it changed. A trace preserves debugging context around actions and page state. A recorded command sequence gives you a starting point for a test that can be replayed and edited.
| Need | Use | What you inspect |
|---|---|---|
| Show what a run looked like | Playwright video | A video file in a player |
| Understand why a Playwright test failed | Playwright trace | An archive opened in Trace Viewer, with actions and associated context |
| Capture user actions as test commands | Selenium IDE | Recorded commands in the IDE, which can be played back and edited |
This distinction matters when sharing evidence or investigating a flaky test. Video can make a sequence visible, but it does not provide the trace viewer’s locator, action-log, source-location, and DOM-snapshot views. A trace is for investigation, not simply a movie file. Selenium IDE’s recording is a command-oriented starting point rather than a visual-only artifact.
Record video for Playwright Test runs
Playwright Test supports video capture through its video setting. Video is off by default. The documented policies let you decide whether to capture all tests, retain only failure-related output, or capture retries. See the Playwright video documentation for the configuration details and supported options.
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Choose a capture policy
| Setting | When to use it | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
off |
You do not need video artifacts. | No video is captured. |
on |
You want a video for every test run. | Captures more artifacts than selective policies. |
retain-on-failure |
You want to keep videos for tests that fail. | Successful-run videos are not retained. |
on-first-retry |
You want video when a test is retried. | It does not capture every initial run. |
Set the policy in the Playwright Test configuration. For example, this config enables video for each test:
import { defineConfig } from '@playwright/test';
export default defineConfig({
use: {
video: 'on',
},
});To retain video only when a test fails, use video: 'retain-on-failure'. To capture video on a retry, use video: 'on-first-retry'. The setting is a capture policy, so pick the one that matches how often you need visual evidence rather than enabling capture by habit.
Manual browser contexts must be closed
If you create a BrowserContext manually rather than relying on Playwright Test to manage the test context, close it and await that closure before expecting the video file to be finalized. The Browser API also documents context-level recordVideo, including an output directory and optional size settings; consult the Playwright Browser API reference for the current API shape.
In practice, make context shutdown part of the end of your script’s normal cleanup path, including when an assertion or interaction fails. Otherwise, the browser run may have happened but the expected video may not yet be available as a finished file.
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Record a Playwright trace to debug a test
For a failure you need to understand—not merely show—record a trace. A trace can preserve the action sequence alongside locator information, timing, action logs, source locations, and DOM snapshots. When screenshots are enabled, the timeline also includes screencast imagery. This lets you inspect what Playwright attempted and the page state around an action rather than relying only on the final screen.
Capture a trace with Playwright Test
For a quick local run, the Playwright Trace Viewer guide documents this command:
npx playwright test --trace onTo open an exported trace archive locally, run:
npx playwright show-trace path/to/trace.zipReplace path/to/trace.zip with the archive you want to inspect. In the viewer, select an action to examine its timing and before/after state, associated locator, action log, source location, and DOM snapshot. Use the timeline’s screencast frames when screenshots were enabled and you need visual context for the action.
Select a trace mode deliberately
The documented modes include off, on, on-first-retry, on-all-retries, and retain-on-failure. Playwright warns that tracing every test with on is performance-heavy. For a test suite where traces are mainly needed to investigate failures, retry- or failure-oriented modes can reduce the amount of routine capture. If you need to diagnose a problem that is not reliably reproduced on retry, capturing more broadly may be worth the additional overhead.
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Configuration is set in the Playwright Test config’s use options, for example:
import { defineConfig } from '@playwright/test';
export default defineConfig({
use: {
trace: 'on-first-retry',
},
});When you are not using the Playwright Test runner, the Trace Viewer guide describes recording through the BrowserContext tracing API. In that workflow, export the trace as a ZIP archive and open it in Trace Viewer. Follow the current Trace Viewer guide for API calls and options rather than assuming runner configuration applies to a standalone script.
Local versus browser-hosted Trace Viewer
You can inspect a trace with the local show-trace command. Playwright also documents a browser-hosted Trace Viewer and says it processes the trace in the browser without transmitting the trace data externally. That statement applies to the documented Playwright viewer; it should not be generalized to other trace-hosting services or to wherever you separately store or share the ZIP file.
Record browser actions with Selenium IDE
Selenium IDE is a browser extension for recording and playing back user actions. The Selenium documentation lists Chrome, Firefox, and Edge as supported browsers. Its getting-started guide describes creating a project, setting a base URL, interacting with the opened browser window while recording, and stopping the recording in the IDE. The guide is older than the Playwright documentation, so check the relevant browser store for current installation availability rather than assuming the guide establishes present store status.
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- Open Selenium IDE and create a project.
- Set the base URL for the site you intend to exercise.
- Start recording and use the browser window that the IDE opens.
- Perform the interactions you want represented in the test, such as navigating and using the page.
- Return to Selenium IDE and stop recording. Review the captured commands and play them back to check whether the recorded sequence works as intended.
Recording is a convenient way to get an initial command sequence, but it does not remove the need to review the result. Page changes, timing, and the exact interaction path can affect whether a recorded test remains useful. Selenium’s official overview is at Selenium IDE; the step sequence is in its Getting Started guide.
Which method should you choose?
- Choose video when a teammate needs to watch the browser run or you need a visual playback artifact. Select a Playwright video policy based on whether you need every run, failures, or retries.
- Choose a trace when diagnosing a Playwright failure requires the action, locator, timing, source, and page-state context around the failing step.
- Choose Selenium IDE when the goal is to capture user interactions as browser commands that can be reviewed and replayed.
For debugging, trace is usually the most informative of these three artifacts because it connects actions with page and execution context. For communication, a video may be easier to watch. For a recorded starting point for a browser test, Selenium IDE addresses a different need from either artifact.
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If what you need is a clean image of a webpage—not a video or a replayable automation test—ScreenshotNeo can return a screenshot with one GET request. Its cookie-banner handling and page cleanup are separate from recording an automation run, so use it when the deliverable is a page image.
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webpSee the ScreenshotNeo documentation for API parameters. Cookie and consent banners are accepted like a visitor and more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets can be removed before capture; each cleanup step can be turned off. Bot checks or CAPTCHAs, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits are not billed, and each response identifies the page verdict and billing status in headers. ScreenshotNeo also offers an MCP server with screenshot, page-info, and PDF tools for AI agents. The Free plan includes 1,000 shots a month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000 shots.
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Troubleshooting recording problems
The video file is missing or incomplete
- Check that the configured
videomode is notoff. - If you manage the browser context yourself, close it and await closure; Playwright saves videos when the context closes.
- If using
retain-on-failureoron-first-retry, verify that the run meets that policy. These modes do not mean every successful initial run will leave a retained video.
The trace is not available for a passing run
Check the selected trace policy. Retry- and failure-oriented modes intentionally do not capture or retain every passing run in the same way as on. If you need to diagnose a failure that does not reproduce on retry, consider a mode that captures the relevant run, while accounting for the documented performance overhead of tracing every test.
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The trace archive will not open
Confirm that you are pointing show-trace at the exported trace ZIP, not a video file or an unrelated archive. Use the documented Trace Viewer workflow to open the archive. If using the hosted viewer, remember the Playwright documentation’s privacy statement concerns the viewer’s in-browser processing; it does not govern other services where you might store or transmit the archive.
The Selenium recording does not replay correctly
Return to the IDE, review the recorded commands, and run the sequence again from its configured base URL. Make sure you recorded interactions in the browser window opened for the recording flow and stopped the recording through the IDE. If the installed extension or browser behavior differs from the older getting-started guide, check current browser-store details rather than treating the guide as confirmation of current compatibility.
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Can I use Playwright video and trace at the same time?
They are separate capture options with separate artifacts and policies; configure the combination your test workflow needs and check the Playwright documentation for the current configuration details.
Does a screenshot record a browser automation session?
No. A screenshot captures a page image, not the run’s video, trace context, or replayable browser commands.
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