Buildkite

Running Playwright tests in parallel on Buildkite with Currents

TL;DR Check out the example repository and the public Buildkite pipeline:

• https://github.com/currents-dev/currents-examples/tree/main/playwright/ci/buildkite

• https://buildkite.com/andrew-goldis/currents-buildkite

Run Playwright tests in parallel on Buildkite using the native Playwright Sharding to split tests between multiple containers. Parallelizing tests helps decrease overall run duration.

Currents collects results from distributed parallel Buildkite builds for efficient troubleshooting. Each container receives a unique set of tests to run, providing faster feedback from your test suite.

Setup

• Create an organization at https://app.currents.dev

• Create a new project

• Obtain CURRENTS_RECORD_KEY Record Key and CURRENTS_PROJECT_ID

• Store CURRENTS_RECORD_KEY as a pipeline-level secret in your Buildkite dashboard or via the Buildkite Secrets plugin

Sharding

Buildkite provides BUILDKITE_PARALLEL_JOB (0-indexed) and BUILDKITE_PARALLEL_JOB_COUNT environment variables for parallel jobs. Since Playwright shards are 1-indexed, compute the shard index as BUILDKITE_PARALLEL_JOB + 1:

npx playwright test --shard=$((BUILDKITE_PARALLEL_JOB + 1))/$BUILDKITE_PARALLEL_JOB_COUNT

Configuration

Configure the Currents reporter in your playwright.config.ts:

playwright.config.ts

import { currentsReporter } from "@currents/playwright";
import { defineConfig, devices } from "@playwright/test";

export default defineConfig({
  reporter: [currentsReporter()],
  // ... other config
});

Create a currents.config.ts file:

currents.config.ts

import { CurrentsConfig } from "@currents/playwright";

const currentsConfig: CurrentsConfig = {
  projectId: process.env.CURRENTS_PROJECT_ID ?? "your-project-id",
  recordKey: process.env.CURRENTS_RECORD_KEY ?? "",
};

export default currentsConfig;

Example Pipeline

.buildkite/pipeline.yml

steps:
  - label: ":playwright: Playwright Tests"
    command: |
      npm ci
      npx playwright install --with-deps
      npx playwright test --shard=$((BUILDKITE_PARALLEL_JOB + 1))/$BUILDKITE_PARALLEL_JOB_COUNT
    parallelism: 3
    plugins:
      - docker#v5.11.0:
          image: "mcr.microsoft.com/playwright:latest"
    env:
      CURRENTS_PROJECT_ID: "bnsqNa"
      CURRENTS_RECORD_KEY: "${CURRENTS_RECORD_KEY}"

This pipeline:

• Runs 3 parallel containers using Buildkite's parallelism feature

• Uses the official Microsoft Playwright Docker image

• Splits tests using Playwright's native sharding with Buildkite environment variables

• Reports results to Currents via the Playwright Reporter

Environment Variables

Variable	Description
CURRENTS_PROJECT_ID	Your Currents project ID
CURRENTS_RECORD_KEY	Your Currents record key (store as secret)
BUILDKITE_PARALLEL_JOB	Current job index (0-indexed, provided by Buildkite)
BUILDKITE_PARALLEL_JOB_COUNT	Total number of parallel jobs (provided by Buildkite)

Looking for more ways to speed up CI? Read our CI Optimization guide.