playwright 'no tests found.' on simple copy of example.spec.ts

Question

I have just installed playwright (v1.18.1) to try it out (Windows 11) and I feel like something is wrong. I can run the example.spec.ts script fine, but if I copy that file and then try to run the copy then I get a no tests found. error.

The steps seem very basic...

First test run the C:\playwright\test\tests\example.spec.ts script....

C:\playwright\test\tests>npx playwright test example.spec.ts

Running 25 tests using 1 worker

  -  example.spec.ts:14:3 › New Todo › should allow me to add todo items
Terminate batch job (Y/N)?

  25 skipped

[that worked so] then create a copy to start playing...

C:\playwright\test\tests>copy example.spec.ts test4.ts
        1 file(s) copied.

but before editing test4.ts I check it will run...

C:\playwright\test\tests>npx playwright test test4.ts

=================
 no tests found.
=================
npm ERR! code 1
npm ERR! path C:\playwright\test\tests
npm ERR! command failed
npm ERR! command C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /d /s /c playwright test test4.ts

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_logs\2022-02-09T16_29_19_723Z-debug.log

If it helps the log reads:

C:\playwright\test\tests>type C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_logs\2022-02-09T16_37_46_149Z-debug.log
0 verbose cli [
0 verbose cli   'C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe',
0 verbose cli   'C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js',
0 verbose cli   'exec',
0 verbose cli   '--',
0 verbose cli   'playwright',
0 verbose cli   '-version'
0 verbose cli ]
1 info using [email protected]
2 info using [email protected]
3 timing config:load:defaults Completed in 1ms
4 timing config:load:file:C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\npmrc Completed in 1ms
5 timing config:load:builtin Completed in 2ms
6 timing config:load:cli Completed in 1ms
7 timing config:load:env Completed in 0ms
8 timing config:load:file:C:\playwright\test\.npmrc Completed in 0ms
9 timing config:load:project Completed in 1ms
10 timing config:load:file:C:\Users\xxxxx\.npmrc Completed in 0ms
11 timing config:load:user Completed in 0ms
12 timing config:load:file:C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Roaming\npm\etc\npmrc Completed in 0ms
13 timing config:load:global Completed in 0ms
14 timing config:load:cafile Completed in 0ms
15 timing config:load:validate Completed in 1ms
16 timing config:load:setUserAgent Completed in 0ms
17 timing config:load:setEnvs Completed in 1ms
18 timing config:load Completed in 7ms
19 verbose npm-session c0bee43e8701d230
20 timing npm:load Completed in 16ms
21 timing command:exec Completed in 633ms
22 verbose stack Error: command failed
22 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\@npmcli\promise-spawn\index.js:64:27)
22 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:376:20)
22 verbose stack     at maybeClose (node:internal/child_process:1063:16)
22 verbose stack     at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:295:5)
23 verbose pkgid [email protected]
24 verbose cwd C:\playwright\test\tests
25 verbose Windows_NT 10.0.22000
26 verbose argv "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "exec" "--" "playwright" "-version"
27 verbose node v15.4.0
28 verbose npm  v7.0.15
29 error code 1
30 error path C:\playwright\test\tests
31 error command failed
32 error command C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /d /s /c playwright -version
33 verbose exit 1

Why is it giving me an error when it is just a copy of an original that does work?

Answer 1

I used forward slashes after launching terminal from vscode on windows laptop and it worked.

npx playwright test ./tests/example.spec.js

Answer 2

You can set up your own test match regex in the playwright test config.
By default, Playwright Test looks for files matching .*(test|spec)\.(js|ts|mjs), but you can run any js file by doing this:

import { PlaywrightTestConfig, devices } from '@playwright/test';

const config: PlaywrightTestConfig = {
  testMatch: /.*\.js/,
};
export default config;

Keep in mind that it would try to load tests from any helper file you have in your folder. I think that following the test or spec convention is a good thing.