Isolation

Tests written with Playwright execute in isolated clean-slate environments called browser contexts. This isolation model improves reproducibility and prevents cascading test failures.

BrowserContexts are equivalent to incognito-like profiles, they are fast and cheap to create and completely isolated, even when running in a single browser. Playwright creates a context for each test, and provides a default Page in that context.

When using Playwright as a Test Runner, this happens out of the box for each test. Otherwise, you can create browser contexts manually.

TypeScript

const { test } = require('@playwright/test');

test('example test', async ({ page, context }) => {
  // "context" is an isolated BrowserContext, created for this specific test.
  // "page" belongs to this context.
});

test('another test', async ({ page, context }) => {
  // "context" and "page" in this second test are completely
  // isolated from the first test.
});

JavaScript

import { test } from '@playwright/test';

test('example test', async ({ page, context }) => {
  // "context" is an isolated BrowserContext, created for this specific test.
  // "page" belongs to this context.
});

test('another test', async ({ page, context }) => {
  // "context" and "page" in this second test are completely
  // isolated from the first test.
});

Library

const browser = await chromium.launch();
const context = await browser.newContext();
const page = await context.newPage();

Browser contexts can also be used to emulate multi-page scenarios involving mobile devices, permissions, locale and color scheme. Check out our Emulation guide for more details.

Multiple contexts in a single test

Playwright can create multiple browser contexts within a single scenario. This is useful when you want to test for multi-user functionality, like a chat.

TypeScript

const { test } = require('@playwright/test');

test('admin and user', async ({ browser }) => {
  // Create two isolated browser contexts
  const adminContext = await browser.newContext();
  const userContext = await browser.newContext();
  
  // Create pages and interact with contexts independently
  const adminPage = await adminContext.newPage();
  const userPage = await userContext.newPage();
});

JavaScript

import { test } from '@playwright/test';

test('admin and user', async ({ browser }) => {
  // Create two isolated browser contexts
  const adminContext = await browser.newContext();
  const userContext = await browser.newContext();
  
  // Create pages and interact with contexts independently
  const adminPage = await adminContext.newPage();
  const userPage = await userContext.newPage();
});

Library

const { chromium } = require('playwright');

// Create a Chromium browser instance
const browser = await chromium.launch();

// Create two isolated browser contexts
const userContext = await browser.newContext();
const adminContext = await browser.newContext();

// Create pages and interact with contexts independently
const adminPage = await adminContext.newPage();
const userPage = await userContext.newPage();