System tests without playwright-page

playwright-page wires the browser into one describe block at a time. When most of a suite's browser specs share the same setup, you can register the lifecycle once in a .behave config file and tag the relevant groups instead of calling playwright-page in each one.

Register the lifecycle once

BDD::Behave::Playwright.install($config) registers the browser lifecycle as config-level hooks and exposes the current page as a helper. Put it in your project's .behave file:

use BDD::Behave::Playwright;

configure-behave -> $config {
  BDD::Behave::Playwright.install($config);
}

By default the lifecycle applies to every group tagged type => system. The browser launches in a before-all, a fresh context and page open in a before-each, and they tear down (writing failure artifacts when an example failed) in after-each / after-all.

Tag the group

Mark a describe with :type<system>. Every example inside it gets a live browser page, reachable as the page term:

use BDD::Behave;
use BDD::Behave::Playwright;

describe 'the greeting page', :type<system>, {
  it 'shows the greeting', {
    page.goto(fixture-url('specs/fixtures/hello.html'));
    expect(page.locator('#greeting')).to.have-text('Hello, world');
  }
}

use BDD::Behave::Playwright brings the page term (and fixture-url) into the spec. The same page is also reachable as .page on the topic in a -> $_ { ... } block, which needs no import. Unlike playwright-page, the config path does not navigate for you, so call page.goto(...) (with fixture-url for local files, or a real URL) at the start of the example.

Choosing the tag

Pass :type to use a different tag, for example to separate full-page system tests from feature tests:

configure-behave -> $config {
  BDD::Behave::Playwright.install($config, :type<feature>);
}

describe 'checkout', :type<feature>, {
  it 'reaches the confirmation page', { ... }
}

Artifacts and tracing

install reads the same settings as playwright-page: pass :artifacts to set the output directory (or use the PLAYWRIGHT_ARTIFACTS environment variable), and :trace to record a Playwright trace (or set PLAYWRIGHT_TRACE). Screenshots and traces are written only for examples that fail.

BDD::Behave::Playwright.install($config, :artifacts<tmp/playwright>, :trace);

When to use which

• playwright-page suits a handful of browser specs, or groups that each load a different fixture, where keeping the setup beside the examples reads clearly.

• install plus :type<system> suits a suite with many browser specs that share one setup, keeping the lifecycle in one place.