Creating a Playwright Check Suite

Turn your Playwright tests into production monitors by creating a checkly.config.ts file

Turn your Playwright tests into production monitors. This guide walks through creating a checkly.config.ts, testing it, and deploying your first check suites.

Explore all Playwright Check Suite capabilities.

Prerequisites

• A Checkly account
• A repository with Playwright tests and a playwright.config.ts file
• Playwright version 1.40 or higher
• Node.js installed locally

Step 1: Install the Checkly CLI

terminal

npm install --save-dev checkly

If you use TypeScript, also install jiti to bundle config and test files correctly:

terminal

npm install --save-dev jiti

Step 2: Create Your checkly.config.ts

Create a checkly.config.ts file in your project root. This file defines which tests become monitors and how they run.

Basic structure:

checkly.config.ts

import { defineConfig } from 'checkly'
import { Frequency } from 'checkly/constructs'

export default defineConfig({
  projectName: 'My App Monitoring',
  logicalId: 'my-app-monitoring',

  checks: {
    // Point to your Playwright config
    playwrightConfigPath: './playwright.config.ts',

    // Define which tests to monitor
    playwrightChecks: [
      // Add check suites here
    ],

    // Default settings for all checks
    frequency: Frequency.EVERY_10M,
    locations: ['us-east-1', 'eu-west-1'],
  },

  cli: {
    runLocation: 'us-east-1',
  },
})

Step 3: Select Tests to Monitor

Each entry in the playwrightChecks array becomes a separate monitor. Use pwProjects or pwTags to control which tests each check suite runs.

This example creates two check suites — one for critical flows running every 5 minutes, and one for secondary features at a lower frequency:

checkly.config.ts

export default defineConfig({
  // ... config from above

  checks: {
    playwrightConfigPath: './playwright.config.ts',
    playwrightChecks: [
      {
        name: 'Critical User Flows',
        logicalId: 'critical-flows',
        pwProjects: ['critical'],
        frequency: Frequency.EVERY_5M,
        locations: ['us-east-1', 'eu-west-1', 'ap-south-1'],
      },

      {
        name: 'Important Features',
        logicalId: 'important-features',
        pwProjects: ['important'],
        frequency: Frequency.EVERY_30M,
        locations: ['us-east-1', 'eu-west-1'],
      },
    ],
  },
})

Per-check frequency and locations override the global defaults set in Step 2. For strategies on grouping tests by urgency, environment, or feature area, see Test organization.

Step 4: Test Your Configuration

Before deploying, validate your monitoring setup locally:

terminal

npx checkly test --record

The --record flag uploads results to Checkly so you can review traces, logs, and screenshots in the UI.

This runs your check suites in Checkly’s infrastructure and shows results:

Parsing your project... ✅
Validating project resources... ✅
Bundling project resources... ✅

Running 2 checks in us-east-1.

playwright.config.ts
  ✔ Critical User Flows (12s)
  ✔ Important Features (8s)

2 passed, 2 total

Test specifying the environment type:

terminal

npx checkly test --record --env ENVIRONMENT=staging

Difference between checkly test and checkly pw-test:

• checkly test - Runs check suites defined in checkly.config.ts and check.ts files
• checkly pw-test - Runs any Playwright tests defined in your playwright.config.ts, directly on Checkly’s cloud infrastructure. See the CLI reference.

Step 5: Deploy to Production Monitoring

Deploy your check suites to start continuous monitoring:

terminal

npx checkly deploy

Confirm deployment:

> You are about to deploy your project "my-app-monitoring" to account "My Account".
  Do you want to continue? … yes

Successfully deployed project "my-app-monitoring" to account "My Account".

Your monitors run on the configured schedule. View results in your Checkly dashboard.

Best Practices

• Start small — Begin with 1-2 critical flows. Add more as you understand your monitoring needs.
• Keep suites fast — Shorter suites mean faster alerts. See How long should a check suite run? for guidance.
• Reuse authentication state — Use Playwright project dependencies and storageState to log in once and share the session across tests.

Next Steps

Test Organization

Advanced strategies for organizing test suites

Configure Alerts

Set up notifications when checks fail

Add to Groups

Organize checks with groups

checkly pw-test

Run Playwright tests on Checkly’s cloud infrastructure