currents-integration

Overview

Per currents-docs (opens in new window):

"Playwright reports explain a single run. Currents explains your test suite over time, and more."

Currents.dev is a SaaS test analytics platform that ingests per-run results via runner-specific reporters and provides longitudinal views (flake rate over time, slowest-test trends, PR-level deltas). It's commonly paired with Playwright and Cypress.

This skill covers the Playwright integration; the Cypress integration follows the same shape with @currents/cypress (see references/ci-and-cypress-integration.md).

When to use

• A Playwright suite has 100+ tests and the team needs over-time analytics: which tests flake, which tests slow down across PRs, which tests fail on certain CI runners only.
• The team wants per-PR test diffs (this PR's failures vs main's failures) without building a custom dashboard.
• The team is on Cypress (use @currents/cypress with the same shape).

If the suite is small (<50 tests) and the team only needs the per-run report, Playwright's built-in HTML reporter is enough - no SaaS dependency.

How to use

1. Confirm the suite is large enough to need over-time analytics (see When to use); a small suite is fine on Playwright's HTML reporter.
2. Install @currents/playwright.
3. Author currents.config.ts (recordKey from env, projectId inline) and register currentsReporter() in playwright.config.ts.
4. Enable trace / video / screenshot artifacts so Currents has per-test data to analyze.
5. Run npx pwc; open the dashboard URL it prints.
6. Wire the same run into CI, recording both main (baseline) and PR runs - the full workflow, per-PR-vs-main rationale, and the Cypress sister integration are in references/ci-and-cypress-integration.md.

Install

Per currents-pw-quickstart (opens in new window):

npm i -D @currents/playwright
# Equivalent for pnpm / yarn / bun.

Configure currents.config.ts

Place next to playwright.config.ts. Per currents-pw-quickstart (opens in new window):

import { CurrentsConfig } from "@currents/playwright";

const config: CurrentsConfig = {
  recordKey: process.env.CURRENTS_RECORD_KEY!,
  projectId: "your project id goes here",
};

export default config;

The recordKey is the project's record-write secret - never check it into the repo. The projectId is non-secret (visible in the Currents dashboard URL); it's safe to inline.

Register the reporter

In playwright.config.ts, per currents-pw-quickstart (opens in new window):

import { defineConfig } from "@playwright/test";
import { currentsReporter } from "@currents/playwright";

export default defineConfig({
  reporter: [currentsReporter()],
  // ... other config ...
});

The reporter forwards every test event (start, finish, attachments) to the Currents API.

Enable artifacts

Per currents-pw-quickstart (opens in new window), the use section should enable the three artifact types Currents consumes:

use: {
  trace: "on",
  video: "on",
  screenshot: "on",
}

The defaults Playwright ships with (trace: "on-first-retry") cap the artifact volume; Currents wants every test's trace to drive its analytics. For a high-volume suite, consider trace: "retain-on-failure" as a middle ground.

Run

Per currents-pw-quickstart (opens in new window):

# Reads recordKey from env, projectId from config:
npx pwc

# Or pass on the CLI:
npx pwc --key XXX --project-id YYY

pwc is the Currents-aware Playwright wrapper. It runs Playwright with the Currents reporter active and streams results in real-time; on completion, it prints a dashboard URL.

Worked example

A 120-test Playwright suite, first Currents run:

1. npm i -D @currents/playwright.
2. currents.config.ts alongside playwright.config.ts:

import { CurrentsConfig } from "@currents/playwright";

const config: CurrentsConfig = {
  recordKey: process.env.CURRENTS_RECORD_KEY!,
  projectId: "abc123def",
};

export default config;

1. In playwright.config.ts, add the reporter and turn artifacts on:

reporter: [currentsReporter()],
use: { trace: "on", video: "on", screenshot: "on" },

1. Export the secret and run:

export CURRENTS_RECORD_KEY=...     # from the Currents dashboard
npx pwc

pwc streams each test event to Currents and prints a dashboard URL on completion. After the second run on main, the dashboard's trend graphs start showing flake rate and slowest-test movement across runs.

Operating in CI

Run npx pwc from the CI job with CURRENTS_RECORD_KEY supplied as a secret, and trigger on both push to main and pull_request so the dashboard has a baseline (main) to compare each PR run against. Keep Playwright's HTML report as an if: always() artifact fallback for when the dashboard is unreachable. The full GitHub Actions workflow, the per-PR-vs-main baseline rationale, and the Cypress sister integration are in references/ci-and-cypress-integration.md.

Anti-patterns

Limitations

• SaaS dependency. Currents is a managed service. Air-gapped / offline CI can't use it directly.
• Per-run cost. Recording every PR push to a public repo with 100s of tests can hit the plan's recorded-test-count quota. Consider main-only recording for low-traffic projects.
• No first-party Jest / Mocha integration. The platform is Playwright + Cypress focused; other runners need custom JUnit XML ingestion (which loses per-test artifacts).
• Doc URL drift. Per the redirect chain observed in this skill's source-fetch (currents.dev → docs.currents.dev → versioned paths), Currents docs occasionally move. Pin a version of the SDK package and re-verify URLs at each upgrade.

References

• currents-docs (opens in new window) - Currents.dev overview, "test suite over time, and more" positioning, supported runners (Playwright explicit; Cypress in the references file).
• currents-pw-quickstart (opens in new window) - Playwright integration: install, currents.config.ts shape (recordKey + projectId), reporter registration, artifact config (trace / video / screenshot), npx pwc run command.
• references/ci-and-cypress-integration.md - full GitHub Actions workflow, per-PR-vs-main baselines, and the Cypress sister integration.
• junit-xml-analysis - pair with Currents to keep CI gating self-hosted (JUnit) while Currents handles longitudinal analytics.
• test-management-sync - sibling test-management integrations (different role: test management vs analytics).