Rancher Dashboard E2E: Playwright

Playwright E2E test suite for Rancher Dashboard. Tests run against a live Rancher instance, clicking buttons, creating resources, and verifying real UI behavior.

Get Running

Fastest path: containerized runner (no Node required)

The suite can provision its own Rancher and run entirely in a container, so the only things your host needs are a Docker or Podman daemon and the muster provisioning tools (k3d, kubectl, helm). You do not need Node, Yarn, or a browser on the host, because the tests run inside the container.

First, install the muster provisioner. Its install.sh copies muster into ~/.local/share/muster and symlinks the entrypoint onto your PATH, so the runner finds it automatically:

git clone https://github.com/izaac/muster.git
cd muster && ./install.sh && cd -
# Make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH (install.sh prints a note if it is not).
# Alternatively, point the ./muster symlink at a checkout, or set MUSTER=/path/to/muster.

Then provision Rancher and run a suite:

# Boots Rancher on k3d, then runs the generic smoke suite (~70 tests)
GREP_TAGS="@generic" yarn local:test

The first run pulls the Rancher image and builds the test container, so it takes roughly 10 to 15 minutes. After that, the cluster and images are reused.

# Run the full admin suite against the running cluster
yarn local:test

# Pass any Playwright arguments through after the subcommand
yarn local:test -- -g "Log in with valid"

# Provision once and keep Rancher up for repeated runs
yarn local:up
yarn local:test

# Sharded: one Rancher per shard, merged into a single report
SHARDS=2 yarn local:test:sharded

# Tear everything down
yarn local:down

On a Podman host the runner selects the rootful socket automatically. Rancher's jailer needs real device-node creation, so the substrate has to be rootful.

Native setup (your own Rancher instance)

# Prerequisites: Node 24+, Yarn
git clone https://github.com/izaac/dashboard-e2e-pw.git
cd dashboard-e2e-pw
yarn install
npx playwright install chromium

# Configure
cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env to set TEST_BASE_URL and TEST_PASSWORD for your Rancher instance

# Run all tests
npx playwright test

# Run a single spec
npx playwright test e2e/tests/pages/generic/login.spec.ts

# Run by test name
npx playwright test -g "Log in with valid"

Tip: Start with GREP_TAGS="@generic" npx playwright test for a smoke test (~70 tests) before running the full suite.

Guides

Guide	What it covers
Running Tests	Setup, execution modes, Docker, sharding, tag filtering, environment variables
Debugging Failures	Investigating failures: artifacts, traces, failure types, reproduction
Writing Tests	Page Objects, fixtures, golden rules, blueprints, step-by-step walkthrough
Parallelism	Which specs can run in parallel vs serial
Performance Testing	Opt-in performance probes: isolation, running, tuning knobs, output
Contributing	How to contribute: workflow, rules, conventions

Architecture

e2e/
  tests/          # Spec files import POs and fixtures, no raw selectors
  po/             # Page Objects (mirrors upstream Cypress structure)
  blueprints/     # Test data fixtures (factory functions)
support/
  fixtures/       # Playwright fixtures (login, rancherApi, envMeta)
  utils/          # Shared utilities
scripts/          # Developer tooling (gap-map, po-index, po-diff)
docs/             # Guides and reference

Test Design

Every test is written to work reliably against a shared Rancher instance:

• Atomic: sets up what it needs, does its thing, cleans up. No test depends on another.
• Idempotent: run once or fifty times, pass or fail midway, it works next time.
• Web-first assertions: await expect(loc).toBeVisible() auto-retries instead of reading the DOM once.
• No raw selectors in specs: every selector lives in a Page Object.
• Explicit cleanup: every resource created gets cleaned up in try/finally.

This isn't a find-and-replace from Cypress. Playwright runs at full speed, so timing bugs that Cypress hides behind its command queue surface immediately. See Writing Tests for the full story on why and how.

Developer Tools

yarn po-index            # List all POs with class, selector, and methods
yarn po-diff             # Compare POs against upstream Cypress
yarn gap-map             # Generate assertion gap map (upstream vs ours)
yarn summarize-failures  # Classify test failures after a run

yarn local:up            # Provision Rancher via muster and keep it running
yarn local:test          # Run the suite in a container against that Rancher
yarn local:down          # Tear the cluster down

License

Copyright 2024-2026 Izaac Zavaleta Copyright 2024-2026 SUSE LLC

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

This project is derived from the Rancher Dashboard Cypress E2E test suite, which is also licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.