📌 Playwright Version — Written for v1.61.0

This book and its associated project workspaces (Manual QA Test Plan, Playwright BDD E2E Suite, Playwright API Test Suite, Playwright Component Test Suite, Playwright Accessibility Test Suite) are written and tested against @playwright/test version 1.61.0 (released November 2025). Most project configurations declare ^1.61.0 to ensure compatibility with modern features.

Why 1.61.0 specifically?

Reason	What it gives you
Stable LTS-grade release	1.61 is the November-2025 stable line, well past its breaking-bug shakeout. Safe for CI and production test suites.
Project dependencies (1.31+)	You can chain projects (dependencies: ['setup']) — used in your BDD & auth-state patterns.
Blob reports + merge-reports (1.37+)	Required for the --shard + merged HTML report flow in your GitHub Actions QA Pipeline.
UI Mode (1.32+) & Trace Viewer v2	npx playwright test --ui — the dev-loop you actually use day-to-day.
test.step.skip & soft assertions (1.38+)	Used in your accessibility suite to mark known-broken steps without failing the run.
Component Testing (experimental, 1.43+)	Powers your Playwright Component Test Suite via @playwright/experimental-ct-react.
Locator handlers (1.42+)	page.addLocatorHandler() for auto-dismissing surprise dialogs/cookie banners.
Aria snapshots (1.49+)	expect(locator).toMatchAriaSnapshot() — feeds your accessibility-first assertion style.
Agents & MCP server (1.55+)	npx playwright init-agents — wires Claude/Cursor into Playwright; matches your AI-in-Testing module.
Node.js 18+ requirement	Modern async, native fetch, structuredClone — your existing Node version is already compatible.

How to verify your version

npx playwright --version            # prints: Version 1.61.0
npm ls @playwright/test             # shows resolved version + tree
cat node_modules/@playwright/test/package.json | grep '"version"'

Upgrade guidance for interviews

• Pin in CI — "@playwright/test": "1.61.0" (exact, no caret) so CI is reproducible and browser binaries match.
• Match the Docker image — mcr.microsoft.com/playwright:v1.61.0-jammy. Mismatch between library version and image is the #1 cause of CI-only failures.
• Always run npx playwright install --with-deps after a version bump — browser binaries are version-locked to the library.
• Read the release notes before each bump — github.com/microsoft/playwright/releases.

Honest scope noteThis book covers the most common Playwright-SDET interview surface area for 1–8 years experience. It will NOT make you an expert in every technology mentioned (REST Assured, Cucumber, Lighthouse, BrowserStack) — for those, you'd take a dedicated deep-dive. It WILL give you enough to discuss them intelligently in interviews and decide where to invest further.