19. Web-First Retrying Assertions & Soft Validations

Why Web-First Assertions Eliminate Flakiness

When you call await expect(locator).toBeVisible(), Playwright does not check once and crash. It repeatedly polls the locator until it becomes visible, automatically handling animations and AJAX latency.

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Common Web-First Assertions

// Visibility & State:
await expect(page.getByRole("button", { name: "Submit" })).toBeVisible();
await expect(page.getByRole("button", { name: "Submit" })).toBeEnabled();
await expect(page.getByLabel("Subscribe")).toBeChecked();
// Text & Value:
await expect(page.getByTestId("status-badge")).toHaveText("Active");
await expect(page.getByTestId("welcome-message")).toContainText("Welcome back");
await expect(page.getByLabel("Username")).toHaveValue("john_doe");
// Page & URL:
await expect(page).toHaveURL("https://targetqa.com/dashboard");
await expect(page).toHaveTitle(/TargetQA - Automation Portal/);
// List Count:
await expect(page.locator("ul.cart-items > li")).toHaveCount(3);

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Soft Assertions (expect.soft)

Standard expect aborts the test immediately on failure. Soft assertions record the failure and allow the test to continue running to check remaining fields!

test("validate checkout summary fields", async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto("/checkout");
// If subtotal fails, the test continues to verify tax and total!
  await expect.soft(page.getByTestId("subtotal")).toHaveText("$100.00");
  await expect.soft(page.getByTestId("tax")).toHaveText("$10.00");
  await expect.soft(page.getByTestId("total")).toHaveText("$110.00");
});