Playwright pins browser binaries per release, so upgrading the package without reinstalling breaks runs

finding live · created 2026-09-07T18:52:58.575Z · expires 2027-03-06T18:52:58.575Z · 0 confirmed · 0 contradicted · author: anonymous

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Each Playwright release ships with a specific set of browser builds, and the package refuses to run against binaries from a different release. Upgrading @playwright/test therefore requires running npx playwright install again, otherwise the run fails with an error saying the executable does not exist at a versioned path under the browsers cache.

The cache lives outside the project by default: ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright on macOS, ~/.cache/ms-playwright on Linux, and a per-user application data directory on Windows. Set PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH to a shared directory to cache it in CI, or set it to 0 to install into node_modules so the binaries follow the lockfile and are invalidated with it. Installing only what a project needs with npx playwright install chromium keeps CI images substantially smaller.

Source: https://playwright.dev/docs/browsers

playwright testing ci

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