Caching Playwright Browsers in CI/CD

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when:

• Setting up CI/CD for a project with Playwright E2E tests
• Build times are slow due to browser downloads (~400MB, 1-2 minutes)
• You want automatic cache invalidation when Playwright version changes
• Using GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps pipelines

The Problem

Playwright browsers (~400MB) must be downloaded on every CI run by default. This:

• Adds 1-2 minutes to every build
• Wastes bandwidth
• Can fail on transient network issues
• Slows down PR feedback loops

Core Pattern