Playwright BDD Testing Without Cucumber

Have you ever written a Playwright test that looked clear at first, but the moment the UI changed or another teammate reviewed it, the intent became unclear?

Many testers face this. The test works, but the behaviour behind it is not obvious, and bringing in Cucumber feels heavier than the problem you’re trying to solve.

I went through the same thing. I tried adding Cucumber to make scenarios readable, but the suite became slower, step files multiplied, and simple changes required updates in two places.

I eventually realised the issue was the extra layer. Playwright could already express behaviour directly.

Things improved when I dropped the feature-file layer and applied BDD practices directly inside Playwright. Tests stayed readable, intent became clearer, and maintenance was noticeably lower.

In this guide, I’ll explain how to use BDD principles in Playwright without Cucumber, how to structure tests for clarity, and how to scale them reliably with BrowserStack.

What Is Behaviour Driven Development in End to End Testing

Behaviour Driven Development focuses on how a feature should act from a user or business point of view. In end to end testing, this means the test is written to validate an outcome that matters to the product. The goal is not to script UI actions. The goal is to express the expected result of a user’s behaviour.

A BDD scenario describes three things.

• What state the user starts with.
• What action the user performs.
• What outcome the system must show.

This structure looks simple but it solves practical testing problems. It forces teams to agree on the behaviour before building or testing it. It removes guesswork around what should happen in edge cases. It prevents tests from drifting into UI-level instructions that become unstable when the interface changes.

BDD also shapes how failures are diagnosed. When a test fails, the team can see whether the behaviour was not met, rather than trying to decode a step sequence. This shortens the path between a failed test and a clear fix.

Another challenge teams face is that behaviour often depends on how the application responds under different page states such as slow transitions, delayed API responses, or temporary UI shifts.

These conditions are difficult to reproduce consistently on individual machines.

Platforms like BrowserStack help by providing controlled execution environments where Playwright tests can capture these behaviour-related issues in a predictable way without extra setup.

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Why Playwright Works Well for BDD Style Testing

Playwright fits BDD workflows because it handles most of the low level issues that usually distract teams from focusing on behaviour. This allows scenarios to stay centred on intent rather than framework management.

Here is where it makes a noticeable difference.

• Automatic waiting: Playwright waits for elements to be ready, which removes the timing code that often clutters behaviour tests.

• Consistent cross browser execution: One driver powers all supported browsers, so the same behaviour flow produces predictable results across environments.
• Simple abstraction layers: Page Objects and helper functions stay clean in Playwright, which keeps behaviour scenarios readable and UI logic contained.
• Built in debugging tools: Traces, screenshots, and action logs help teams identify whether a failure is from behaviour or from environment variability.

• Fast parallel execution: Playwright’s test runner handles parallel runs and retries, which keeps behaviour validation fast as the suite grows.

What Is the Overhead When Adding Cucumber With Playwright

Many teams add Cucumber because they want clearer scenarios, but the extra layer often introduces more work than expected. The intent becomes split between feature files and step definitions, and the suite becomes harder to maintain over time.

Here are the areas where that overhead appears.

• Step definition mapping: Every line in a feature file requires a matching binding, which increases the amount of code you maintain.
• Double maintenance: The behaviour lives in Gherkin while the logic lives in step files, and both must stay in sync as the product evolves.

• Slower onboarding: New contributors must learn Playwright and Cucumber structures, which slows down debugging and review cycles.
• Reduced performance: Cucumber adds a parsing and routing layer, which slows execution compared to native Playwright tests.
• More complex parallelisation: Playwright’s runner handles parallel runs smoothly, but Cucumber introduces constraints that require extra setup.
• Fragmented reporting: Playwright’s native reports, screenshots, and traces do not map cleanly to Cucumber without plugins, which complicates analysis.

How To Implement BDD Style Testing Using Playwright Alone

You can follow BDD principles in Playwright without relying on Cucumber. The goal is to express behaviour clearly while keeping the technical layers manageable. These steps show how to do that in a way that stays readable and maintainable.

Step 1: Write the scenario intent in plain language

Start by describing the behaviour in one or two sentences. Keep it at the business level. This becomes the anchor for the test. It clarifies what the user expects and reduces UI dependency.

Step 2: Structure the test using Given, When, Then comments

Use comments inside the Playwright test file to reflect the scenario steps. This keeps the behaviour visible without adding a second format. The comments act as the readable layer while the code performs the actions.

Step 3: Move UI actions into helper functions

Create functions that represent user actions. For example, login, search, add item, or complete checkout. This keeps the test file focused on behaviour and moves the mechanical steps into a reusable layer.

Step 4: Keep assertions at the behaviour level

Assert outcomes, not UI details. Check for states that matter to the user or the business. Avoid tying assertions to fragile elements unless the UI itself is the point of the test.

Step 5: Use Playwright fixtures for context

Fixtures in Playwright help you prepare user roles, data, and app state. When used correctly, they remove setup noise from the behaviour scenario and keep the test clean.

Step 6: Keep scenarios small
A behaviour test should validate one core outcome. If multiple behaviours are involved, split them into separate scenarios. This improves readability and reduces failure ambiguity.

Step 7: Review scenarios with the team

Share the test description and comments with developers and product owners. The goal is to confirm that the scenario reflects the expected behaviour before it becomes automated.

How To Structure Playwright BDD Tests for Collaboration and Clarity

Good BDD style tests only work if other people can read them and quickly see what is going on. That includes testers, developers, and product owners. Structure is what makes that possible. The goal is simple. Anyone should be able to answer three questions by skimming a test file.

• What behaviour is this covering?
• Where does logic live?
• What fails if this breaks?

To reach that point, focus on how you organise files, how you name things, and where you place behaviour versus implementation.

• Use domain based folders, not technical ones: Group tests by business area such as authentication, checkout, search, account, rather than by components or pages. This lets stakeholders map features to tests without knowing the UI structure.

tests/ authentication/

login.spec.ts

reset-password.spec.ts

checkout/

guest-checkout.spec.ts

saved-card-checkout.spec.ts

• Name tests after behaviours, not actions: Use test names that describe the rule you want to guarantee. For example “user with valid credentials reaches dashboard” is clearer than “login success case one”.

test(‘User with valid credentials reaches dashboard’, async ({ page }) => { // behaviour focused body

});

• Keep one scenario per test file when it is critical: For high value flows like checkout or signup, dedicate a file to a single behaviour or a tight group of related behaviours. This makes it easier for product owners to review and for testers to trace coverage.

• Separate behaviour from UI details: Let the test describe behaviour and move selectors and low level steps into page objects or helper modules. The test file should read like a scenario.
• Use a consistent Given When Then pattern in comments: Within each test, keep the same visual pattern. That way, anyone scanning the file knows where setup, action, and assertion live.
• Store shared behaviour in “flows,” not raw helpers: Instead of a generic “clickButton” helper, create flows like “completeGuestCheckout” or “applyCouponAndCheckout”. These flows better match how product owners think and make tests easier to read.
• Keep test setup close to the scenario when it matters: Do not hide important business setup deep inside fixtures. If a user must have a certain role or flag, show that clearly in the test or a nearby helper. Hidden setup is a common cause of confusion in BDD.
• Document assumptions at the top of critical files: Add two or three short lines at the top of a file that explain what behaviours this file covers and what is out of scope. This gives new readers context before they dive into the code.

How To Scale Playwright BDD Tests in CI/CD Pipelines

BDD style tests are useful only if they run often enough to influence decisions. That means they must fit into CI/CD pipelines without blocking releases or becoming unreliable. When the suite is small, this is not a problem. As coverage grows, run time, environment stability, and flakiness start to appear.

You can keep Playwright BDD tests useful at scale by treating them as a product inside your pipeline, not just as scripts. The steps below focus on that.

Step 1: Define clear suites for different stages

Do not push every BDD test into every pipeline. Create logical groups.

• Smoke behaviour: small set of critical flows that must pass on every commit.
• Core behaviour: flows that must pass before a release branch is considered stable.
• Extended behaviour: scenarios that run nightly or on demand.

Use file structure, tags, or naming to separate these sets. This lets you keep feedback fast in earlier stages while still running full coverage when there is time.

Step 2: Make run time a first class metric

Decide an upper limit for how long BDD checks can take in each pipeline stage. For example, smoke behaviour under ten minutes, full behaviour under forty minutes in parallel. Review run time regularly. When run time grows beyond target, split suites or optimize tests before adding more scenarios.

Step 3: Use Playwright projects for environment and browser coverage

Define Playwright projects for different browsers, viewports, or environments. Align those projects with pipeline stages. For example, run only Chromium in PR checks and full browser coverage on main or release branches. BDD tests stay focused on behaviour while config decides where they run.

Step 4: Use parallelism and sharding carefully

Parallel testing is useful only if tests are isolated. Make sure BDD tests do not share mutable state like test accounts, global flags, or hard coded IDs. When tests are safe to run in parallel, use workers and sharding to split them across CI agents. Keep an eye on shared resources such as rate limited APIs or test data stores.

Step 5: Manage test data as seriously as code

Scaling BDD tests fails quickly if data is not predictable. Choose a consistent approach.

• Fresh data per run for destructive flows.
• Stable seeded data for read only behaviour.
• Clear cleanup rules for scenarios that modify state.

Avoid relying on production like data unless you control it. Behaviour tests should not fail because someone changed a record in a shared environment.

Step 6: Treat flakiness as a defect, not a given

Retries are useful but they should not hide unstable behaviour. Enable retries at the runner level to reduce noise in CI, but also track how often they are used. If a test depends on timing, external services, or non deterministic UI state, fix the cause or move it out of the main BDD suite. Keep behaviour tests as deterministic as possible.

Step 7: Use tags to control execution from CI

Tag tests by purpose and business area. For example, @smoke, @checkout-core, @account, @slow. In CI, use these tags to decide what runs in each job. This keeps pipeline configuration simple. You adjust coverage by changing tags instead of editing complex command lines.

Step 8: Make reports readable for non testers

A BDD suite is meant to expose behaviour problems. CI reports should show which behaviour failed in a form that product and engineering leads can understand. Use clear test names and stable structure so that summaries can be consumed without opening every trace. Attach links to traces, screenshots, and logs for deeper debugging.

Step 9: Separate “blocking” behaviour from “informational” behaviour

Not every BDD test must block a deployment. Some can run in parallel as additional safety nets. Mark certain suites as non-blocking in the pipeline. They still run and produce signals, but do not stop a release unless a human reviews the result and decides to act.

As teams scale their BDD suites, they need to confirm that the same behaviour holds under different browser versions, OS combinations, and network conditions. Maintaining this coverage internally is difficult and adds operational load.

Platforms like BrowserStack solve this by providing ready environments where Playwright tests can run consistently and without setup effort.

Common Pitfalls in Playwright BDD Testing and How To Avoid Them

BDD style tests with Playwright can still go wrong if the structure and intent are not clear. Most issues come from mixing behaviour and implementation or from trying to model everything as a scenario. It helps to know the patterns that usually cause trouble.

Here are common pitfalls and how to avoid them.

• Overloading a single scenario: Packing too many behaviours into one test makes it hard to see what failed and why. Keep each test focused on one clear outcome and create separate tests for related but distinct behaviours.
• Tying behaviour to fragile selectors: Writing assertions against specific CSS selectors or layout details makes tests break on minor UI changes. Hide selectors in page objects and keep playwright assertions focused on visible behaviour and user level outcomes.
• Leaking low level details into the test body: Mixing raw locators and clicks with behaviour comments breaks the BDD intent. Keep the test body at the behaviour level and move UI operations into named helpers or page methods.
• Using Gherkin wording but not BDD thinking: Writing Given, When, Then in comments without aligning on real business rules adds ceremony without value. Start from the rule or user expectation and then write the scenario, not the other way around.
• Too much hidden setup in fixtures: When important business setup lives deep in fixtures, reviewers cannot see what state the user starts from. Keep critical preconditions visible in the test or in a nearby helper with clear naming.
• Unstable shared data across scenarios: Reusing the same user or record in many tests causes unpredictable failures when one scenario modifies that data. Use isolated data where possible or reset data between runs to keep behaviour stable.

• Overusing retries to mask flakiness: Relying on retries to “fix” behaviour tests hides timing or state issues. Use retries only as a temporary shield in CI and track flaky tests so you can repair selectors, waits, or data setup.

Why Run Playwright BDD Tests on BrowserStack

Behaviour driven tests only work if they reflect how real users interact with the product. Local runs do not give that guarantee. Different browsers, device types, OS versions, and network conditions expose issues that never show up on a developer machine. This gap becomes more visible as your BDD suite grows because the scenarios focus on outcomes that must hold for every user.

BrowserStack helps close that gap by giving Playwright tests access to real devices and real browsers without changing your test code. This matters for BDD because behaviour checks must hold under realistic conditions, not just controlled local setups.

Here are the areas where BrowserStack Automate adds practical value.

• Parallel Testing: BDD suites grow quickly because each scenario covers a single behaviour. BrowserStack lets you run these scenarios in parallel across multiple browsers and devices. This keeps CI times manageable while increasing coverage.
• Local Environment Testing: Many behaviour flows depend on staging data, feature flags, or internal APIs. BrowserStack can test these flows securely against your local or staging environments. You can validate behaviour early without deploying every change externally.
• Test Reporting and Analytics: BDD tests must explain behaviour failures clearly. BrowserStack’s dashboards show environment details, failures, and run history. This helps teams identify whether the failure is a real behaviour issue or an environment-specific case.
• Web Performance Testing: Some behaviour outcomes depend on speed and responsiveness. BrowserStack highlights layout shifts, slow rendering, and performance bottlenecks. These insights help teams understand where behaviour breaks under real conditions.

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Conclusion

BDD works best when behaviour is clear, stable, and easy for the whole team to understand. Playwright supports this naturally because it removes much of the technical effort that usually gets in the way of writing behaviour focused tests. When you express scenarios directly in Playwright, you avoid the overhead of feature files, step definitions, and duplicated intent.

BrowserStack strengthens this setup by giving BDD tests the environments, data pathways, and execution control they need at scale. Behaviour tests depend on predictable conditions, stable infrastructure, and coverage across the same browser and network variations users work with.

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Useful Resources for Playwright

• Playwright Automation Framework
• Playwright Java Tutorial
• Playwright Python tutorial
• Playwright Debugging
• End to End Testing using Playwright
• Visual Regression Testing Using Playwright
• Mastering End-to-End Testing with Playwright and Docker
• Page Object Model in Playwright
• Scroll to Element in Playwright
• Understanding Playwright Assertions
• Cross Browser Testing using Playwright
• Playwright Selectors
• Playwright and Cucumber Automation

Tool Comparisons:

• Playwright vs Puppeteer
• Playwright vs Cypress
• Playwright vs Selenium
• Cypress vs Selenium vs Playwright vs Puppeteer