Using Async in Playwright with TypeScript

Some Tips and Tricks with the Async feature

June 26, 2025 by cryan.com

In automated browser testing, dealing with asynchronous operations is a fundamental challenge. Playwright, embraces the asynchronous nature of web interactions by heavily relying on async and await. This guide will look into into why async is crucial for your Playwright tests with TypeScript, and what alternatives exist for handling timing in your test scripts.

Why Async and Await are Indispensable in Playwright

As Playwright interacts with web browsers, almost every action, from navigating to a URL to clicking a button, is an asynchronous operation. This means the action does not complete instantaneously; instead, it initiates a process and returns a Promise that will resolve once the operation is finished.

This is where async and await come into play.

• async keyword: You declare a function as async to indicate that it will perform asynchronous operations and will implicitly return a Promise. Every Playwright test function you write will typically be an async function because browser automation is inherently asynchronous.
• await keyword: This keyword can only be used inside an async function. When you await a Promise, your code execution pauses until that Promise settles (either resolves successfully or rejects with an error). This is critical for Playwright, as it ensures your test steps execute in the correct order and wait for the browser to reach the desired state before proceeding. Without await, your test might try to interact with an element that hasn't loaded yet, leading to flaky or failed tests.

Consider a simple Playwright test scenario:

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';
test('should navigate to a page and find an element', async ({ page }) => {
    // Navigating to a URL is an asynchronous operation.
    await page.goto('https://www.example.com');
    // Clicking a button is also asynchronous.
    await page.click('button#submit-button');
    // Asserting the visibility of an element needs to wait for it to appear.
    await expect(page.locator('#success-message')).toBeVisible();
});
            

In this example, each await ensures that the preceding browser action has completed before the next line of code executes. This makes your tests reliable, readable, and easy to debug.

Alternative Approaches to Handling Asynchronicity (and Why Playwright's Approach is Superior)

While async and await are the standard and recommended way to handle asynchronicity in Playwright, it's worth understanding the alternatives that exist in JavaScript/TypeScript, and why they are generally less suitable for Playwright tests.

1. Callbacks

Before Promises and async/await became widespread, callbacks were the primary mechanism for handling asynchronous operations. A callback function is executed once an asynchronous operation completes.

// This is a simplified, non-Playwright example to illustrate callbacks
function fetchData(url: string, callback: (data: string) => void) {
    // Imagine an HTTP request here
    setTimeout(() => {
        callback(`Data from ${url}`);
    }, 1000);
}
// fetchData('https://api.example.com/data', (data) => {
//     console.log(data);
// });
            

Why it's not ideal for Playwright: Callbacks can lead to "callback hell" or "pyramid of doom" when dealing with multiple sequential asynchronous operations, making code difficult to read, maintain, and debug. Playwright's API is built on Promises, making callbacks an unnatural fit.

2. Raw Promises (.then(), .catch())

Promises provide a cleaner alternative to callbacks for handling asynchronous operations. You can chain .then() methods to handle successful resolutions and .catch() to handle errors.

// A Playwright-like example using raw Promises
import { test } from '@playwright/test';
// test('should navigate using raw promises', ({ page }) => {
//     page.goto('https://www.example.com')
//         .then(() => page.click('button#submit-button'))
//         .then(() => page.waitForSelector('#success-message'))
//         .then(() => console.log('Operation complete'))
//         .catch((error) => console.error('An error occurred:', error));
// });
            

Why async/await is preferred: While functional, using raw .then() chains can still be less readable and harder to reason about than async/await, especially when dealing with conditional logic or error handling that requires more complex flow. async/await makes asynchronous code look and behave more like synchronous code, significantly improving readability and maintainability.

3. Implicit Waiting and Auto-Waiting (Playwright's Built-in Features)

It's important to differentiate between explicit await for Playwright actions and Playwright's powerful built-in auto-waiting mechanisms. Playwright automatically waits for elements to be actionable (e.g., visible, enabled, not obscured) before performing actions like clicks or typing. It also waits for navigations to complete and network idle.

Example of Playwright's auto-waiting:

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';
test('Playwright auto-waits for click', async ({ page }) => {
    await page.goto('https://demo.playwright.dev/todomvc');
    // Playwright will automatically wait for the input to be ready
    await page.locator('.new-todo').fill('Buy groceries');
    await page.locator('.new-todo').press('Enter');
    // Playwright will wait for the list item to appear
    await expect(page.locator('.todo-list li')).toHaveText('Buy groceries');
});
            

Relationship with async/await: While Playwright handles many waits implicitly, you still need await for the Playwright methods themselves to ensure the *initiation* of the action and the *resolution* of its underlying Promise. Playwright's auto-waiting is an internal optimization that works in conjunction with your async/await structure to make your tests robust without requiring explicit sleep or setTimeout calls.

Conclusion

For building reliable and readable Playwright tests with TypeScript, embracing async and await is not just a best practice, it's a fundamental requirement. They provide a clear, sequential way to write asynchronous code, mirroring the user's interaction with a browser. While other asynchronous patterns exist, none offer the same level of clarity and integration with Playwright's promise-based API. By mastering async/await, you will write more efficient, maintainable, and robust end-to-end tests.