4.2Essential Artifact Types

Test Reports

Test reports are the primary artifacts. They tell you what passed, what failed, and provide details for each failure.

Format	Best For	Consumed By
JUnit XML	Universal standard; every CI platform can parse it	GitHub Actions annotations, GitLab MR widgets, Jenkins test results
HTML reports	Human-readable, shareable with non-technical stakeholders	Browsers, Slack links
Allure reports	Rich interactive reports with history and trends	Allure server, static hosting
JSON results	Programmatic analysis, custom dashboards	Scripts, Grafana, custom tools

# Generate JUnit XML for CI platform integration
- run: npx playwright test --reporter=junit
  env:
    PLAYWRIGHT_JUNIT_OUTPUT_NAME: results.xml

# Generate HTML for human consumption
- run: npx playwright test --reporter=html

# Generate both
- run: npx playwright test --reporter=junit,html

Pro tip: Configure your test runner to produce JUnit XML by default (for the CI platform to parse) and HTML reports on demand (for manual investigation).

Screenshots and Videos

Browser test failures are almost impossible to diagnose without visual evidence. Configure your test framework to capture screenshots on failure and optionally record video.

// playwright.config.ts
export default defineConfig({
  use: {
    screenshot: 'only-on-failure',
    video: 'retain-on-failure',
    trace: 'retain-on-failure',
  },
});

Playwright traces are especially valuable. A trace captures a timeline of every action, network request, DOM snapshot, and console log. You can open them in the Trace Viewer and step through the test execution like a debugger.

- uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
  if: failure()
  with:
    name: playwright-traces
    path: test-results/
    retention-days: 14

Coverage Reports

Coverage reports track which lines of code were exercised during testing. They are useful for:

• Identifying untested code paths
• Tracking coverage trends over time
• Verifying that new code has tests

- run: npm run test:unit -- --coverage --coverageReporters=lcov --coverageReporters=text
- uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
  if: always()
  with:
    name: coverage-report
    path: coverage/

Important: Track coverage trends, not absolute numbers. A coverage threshold of 80% is meaningless if the uncovered 20% contains the most critical business logic. Better: require that new code is covered, not that the entire codebase meets a threshold.

Logs

Application logs from test containers, browser console logs, and network HAR files provide context that test reports alone cannot.

# Capture Docker container logs
- name: Capture service logs
  if: failure()
  run: |
    docker logs test-db > postgres.log 2>&1
    docker logs test-app > application.log 2>&1

- uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
  if: failure()
  with:
    name: service-logs
    path: |
      postgres.log
      application.log

HAR Files (Network Traffic)

HAR (HTTP Archive) files capture every network request and response during a test. They are invaluable for debugging API-related test failures.

// Capture HAR file in Playwright
const context = await browser.newContext({
  recordHar: { path: 'test-results/network.har' }
});
// ... run tests ...
await context.close(); // HAR file is saved on close