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If Chromatic snapshots differ between local development and CI, start with the capture trace—not a local screenshot. Chromatic renders snapshots in its cloud browser, and the Snapshot image is not the same artifact as Storybook’s interactive Canvas. Check the trace for resource failures, console errors, DOM and style differences, and viewport or clip metadata; then make fonts, data, time, and animation state deterministic before checking browser settings and CI wiring.
Why Chromatic snapshots differ between local and CI
A local view and a Chromatic snapshot can differ because they are produced through different render paths. Canvas is an interactive, live-rendered environment; Chromatic’s Snapshot view shows an image captured in its cloud browser. JavaScript may be blocked during capture, and code that checks isChromatic() may deliberately render differently. A screenshot taken in a local browser is therefore not automatically an equivalent baseline. Chromatic explains its snapshot process here.
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Do not assume a particular root cause until you inspect the affected build. Common causes include a font or asset that failed to load, asynchronous or variable data, time-dependent content, animation state, a different viewport or device pixel ratio (DPR), and CI metadata that associates a build with the wrong commit or branch.
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1. Establish exactly what differs
- Open the affected test or story in Chromatic and compare its Snapshot image with Canvas.
- Record the story, build, browser, viewport, and whether the difference is consistent or intermittent.
- Note whether the problem is a layout shift, missing content, typography change, arbitrary animation frame, or an unexpected diff across much of the image.
This evidence helps distinguish a rendering problem from a capture-setting or build-association problem. Chromatic compares each new snapshot with the previous baseline for that test, so verify you are looking at the expected test and build. See Chromatic’s snapshot documentation.
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2. Inspect the capture trace before changing code
Open the trace attached to the affected build. Chromatic’s trace viewer provides network requests, console logs, an archived DOM, and capture metadata including the viewport and clip rectangle. Use the trace viewer documentation to locate these details.
- Network: Look for failed, blocked, or slow fonts, stylesheets, scripts, and images. Confirm responses succeeded and have the expected MIME types.
- Console: Check for runtime errors that prevent a component or story from rendering.
- Archived DOM and styles: Determine whether an element never appeared or appeared with different styling.
- Viewport and clip: Check whether the capture dimensions or clipping excluded, shifted, or changed the responsive layout of the content.
Use what the trace shows to guide the fix; a plausible cause is not proof until it matches the captured evidence.
3. Stabilize fonts and other resources
When text alignment differs, first confirm that the intended font loaded in the capture. A fallback font changes glyph widths and other metrics, which can shift text and nearby layout. Prefer stable local or static assets over unpredictable remote resources where practical, make sure Chromatic can reach protected assets through any firewall, and serve web fonts reliably. Preloading fonts can help them arrive in time for capture.
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There is also a flexbox edge case worth checking: unwrapped text directly inside a flex parent becomes an anonymous flex item, whose size and baseline depend on font metrics. Wrapping the text in an element gives CSS a consistent target. Chromatic addresses this and other alignment causes in its unstable tests debugging guide.
4. Make data and timing deterministic
- Replace unseeded random values with fixed or seeded data.
- Mock the current time when the UI depends on dates or times.
- Make sure mocked API data is available before capture.
- For stories using MSW, check Storybook initialization, handlers, and versions; also review warnings from a locally built Storybook.
- Use interaction assertions to establish that the expected state has been reached before capture.
A delay can help when a deterministic render needs a known settling interval, but it should not hide a state that never becomes deterministic. Chromatic’s unstable-tests guide discusses these sources of variation: unstable test debugging.
5. Handle animation according to how it is implemented
Chromatic says its capture process proactively pauses CSS animations and transitions, videos, and GIFs. JavaScript-driven animations are different: Chromatic cannot automatically stop them, so pause them in the test or make the story render a stable state. If an animation must finish, wait for the relevant interaction or use an appropriate documented delay rather than relying on an arbitrary captured frame. Chromatic’s snapshot guide and animation guidance explain the distinction.
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6. Compare browser, viewport, DPR, and clip like with like
Confirm the intended viewport and responsive mode, then inspect the trace’s actual viewport and clip rectangle. Chromatic maintains browser-specific baselines; a snapshot in one browser should not be treated as interchangeable with another browser’s baseline. Browser infrastructure upgrades can also cause subtle rendering changes. Review Chromatic’s browser guidance.
Chromatic’s Snapshots documentation, accessed in 2026, says Capture 9 uses DPR 2.0. A comparison between DPR 2.0 and DPR 1.0 is flagged as changed even when layout is otherwise identical. The documentation also notes that unusually tall or wide Firefox or Safari snapshots can fall back to DPR 1.0 because of image-dimension limits. Read the comparison notice before treating a broad diff as a CSS regression. In the specific case where Chromatic cannot detect a natural height for the outermost DOM element, its unstable-tests guide documents a default viewport height of 900px; that is not a universal viewport setting. Snapshots · Unstable tests debugging.
7. Verify CI credentials, command, and commit identity
Check that CHROMATIC_PROJECT_TOKEN is configured as a CI secret, that the Chromatic CLI is installed in the project’s development dependencies, and that the command matches the integration you use (Storybook, Vitest, Playwright, or Cypress). If provider checks appear on the wrong commit or branch, inspect CHROMATIC_SHA, CHROMATIC_BRANCH, and CHROMATIC_SLUG; Chromatic identifies all three as required for the Git-provider linking fix it describes. Follow its CI setup guide for the relevant integration.
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If the trace and configuration still do not explain the mismatch, use the specific build and test evidence when contacting Chromatic support rather than guessing.
Why doesn’t text alignment match my development environment?
Font loading is a high-value first check: a fallback font has different metrics and can move text, baselines, and surrounding elements. Use the capture trace to verify the font request succeeded, then check computed styles and the archived DOM. Also check whether the local Canvas and cloud snapshot render through different paths, and whether text is an unwrapped anonymous flex item whose baseline depends on font metrics. Fix the cause shown by the trace before adjusting margins or other layout values to compensate.
Keep a compact record when diagnosing recurring diffs
For each mismatch, record the render context and capture route, browser and any infrastructure update, viewport and clip, DPR, resource load status and timing, data/time/random seed, interaction state, and animation state. These are the comparison axes most likely to separate environmental differences from an actual UI change.
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Or skip the browser setup
If the separate goal is to obtain a clean webpage image for documentation, monitoring, or an agent workflow, ScreenshotNeo is a screenshot API and MCP server; it does not replace Chromatic’s story-based visual regression baselines. Its one-call API can capture a URL as an image or PDF:
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Chromatic use the screenshot from my local Storybook Canvas?
No. Canvas is interactive and live-rendered; Chromatic’s Snapshot view shows an image captured in its cloud browser.
Can a delay fix a flaky snapshot?
Only when the render is otherwise deterministic and needs a known settling interval. A delay does not make unpredictable data or state reliable.
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