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Playwright Runner

Differences from the VS Code extension

The extension mirrors the Playwright VS Code extension through the surfaces Zed gives extensions. These are the differences you will notice, each with its reason.

  • The executing step is marked with a trailing label, not a highlighted line: Zed has no decoration API for extensions, inlay hints are the closest native surface.
  • The run output opens as an editor tab, not in a Test Results panel, because Zed has no panel an extension could fill. The tasks recipe on the Help page is the way to a real terminal.
  • Both surfaces are opt-in through Zed settings (code_lens, inlay_hints).
  • “Show trace viewer” is an entry in the ctrl-. menu rather than a checkbox in a settings view, and the trace of a particular test is chosen with the cursor rather than in a Test Explorer tree, because Zed has neither. The viewer window starts with the first trace to show instead of before the run.
  • “Show browser” and “Close all browsers” are ctrl-. entries for the same reason. Turning “Show trace viewer” on also turns “Show browser” off here, where the VS Code extension only has the opposite direction. While the browser is shown, the VS Code extension also turns video recording off; the command line has no switch for that, so a project that records video keeps doing so and Playwright then opens a fresh context per test instead of reusing one. The kept browser is closed by the action or by turning the option off; closing its last page by hand does not stop it (the next run simply opens a new page in it).
  • Zed caches the ctrl-. menu per cursor position, so the [x] marks of the project, trace viewer and browser toggles lag one toggle behind at an unchanged cursor; the confirmation notification shows the real state.
  • After an update or reinstall of the extension in the same Zed session, Zed keeps the Playwright server stopped until you run editor: restart language server (see Install).
  • A folder default for the selected projects (projects) exists only here; the VS Code extension has no equivalent.
  • Watch mode, pick locator, debugging, locator tuning and test recording are not implemented yet. The Parity page lists the status of every upstream capability.