How do you test screens that need a logged-in user?
Reuse an authenticated session, seed data per test, and keep tests independent of each other.
Log in once, reuse everywhere
Logging in at the top of every test wastes time and couples tests to your auth flow. Playwright lets you log in once, save the storage state (the cookies and localStorage that mark you as logged in), and load it wherever you need a signed-in user.
How do I avoid logging in inside every test in a Next.js App Router project, and reuse a signed-in storage state across Playwright tests instead?
Keep tests independent
Seed the data each test needs and clean it up after. Never let one test depend on another running first.
How do I keep each Playwright test independent so the order they run in does not matter, including how I seed and clean up data?
Log in once and reuse the storage state. Seed and clean per test so no test depends on another running first.
Additional Resources
Explore these carefully curated resources to deepen your understanding and practice the concepts covered in this lesson.
Playwright Authentication
DocumentationHow to log in once, save storage state, and reuse it across tests without repeating the login flow.
https://playwright.dev/docs/auth
Playwright Fixtures
DocumentationHow to share setup and teardown logic across tests using Playwright's fixture system.
https://playwright.dev/docs/test-fixtures