playwright-ci-caching

1# Caching Playwright Browsers in CI/CD
2 
3## When to Use This Skill
4 
5Use this skill when:
6- Setting up CI/CD for a project with Playwright E2E tests
7- Build times are slow due to browser downloads (~400MB, 1-2 minutes)
8- You want automatic cache invalidation when Playwright version changes
9- Using GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps pipelines
10 
11## The Problem
12 
13Playwright browsers (~400MB) must be downloaded on every CI run by default. This:
14- Adds 1-2 minutes to every build
15- Wastes bandwidth
16- Can fail on transient network issues
17- Slows down PR feedback loops
18 
19## Core Pattern
20 
211. **Extract Playwright version** from `Directory.Packages.props` (CPM) to use as cache key
222. **Cache browser binaries** using platform-appropriate paths
233. **Conditional install** - only download on cache miss
244. **Automatic cache bust** - key includes version, so package upgrades invalidate cache
25 
26## Cache Paths by OS
27 
28| OS | Path |
29|----|------|
30| Linux | `~/.cache/ms-playwright` |
31| macOS | `~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright` |
32| Windows | `%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\ms-playwright` |
33 
34## GitHub Actions
35 
36```yaml
37- name: Get Playwright Version
38  shell: pwsh
39  run: |
40    $propsPath = "Directory.Packages.props"
41    [xml]$props = Get-Content $propsPath
42    $version = $props.Project.ItemGroup.PackageVersion |
43      Where-Object { $_.Include -eq "Microsoft.Playwright" } |
44      Select-Object -ExpandProperty Version
45    echo "PlaywrightVersion=$version" >> $env:GITHUB_ENV
46 
47- name: Cache Playwright Browsers
48…