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To capture many website pages in GitLab CI, run a Playwright script that visits a URL list, saves each screenshot to a directory, and uploads that directory as a job artifact. If you use Playwright Test rather than a URL-loop script, GitLab can split the test suite across parallel jobs with Playwright’s --shard option. Those are two different designs: a plain URL list is not automatically distributed by Playwright Test sharding.
Choose how to divide the work
First decide whether your input is a list of URLs or a Playwright Test suite. A script is usually the direct fit for a simple URL list: it owns the list and visits each entry. Playwright Test sharding is for splitting work that the test runner recognizes as tests; it does not partition an arbitrary array of URLs for you.
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- One URL-list script: simplest setup and straightforward output naming. It runs as one job unless you explicitly partition the list yourself.
- Sharded Playwright Test suite: useful when captures are already represented as tests and there are runners available to execute multiple jobs. GitLab supplies each job’s shard index and total.
Playwright’s CI guidance recommends one worker per CI job by default for stability and reproducibility. It describes sharding across jobs as the way to broaden parallelization; using more workers inside a job is an option for powerful self-hosted systems, not a universal setting.
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Capture a URL list with Playwright
This minimal JavaScript script uses Playwright’s Chromium browser, reads URLs from urls.txt, and writes full-page PNG files beneath screenshots/. Each non-empty line in urls.txt should be a complete URL. The example is a starting point: choose viewport, page readiness, authentication, and screenshot behavior to suit the sites you capture.
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1. Add the files to your repository
Install Playwright as a project dependency and commit the lockfile so the CI install is reproducible. For example, initialize with npm init -y, then install playwright and save this script as capture.mjs.
import { chromium } from 'playwright';
import { mkdir, readFile } from 'node:fs/promises';
import { basename } from 'node:path';
const urls = (await readFile('urls.txt', 'utf8'))
.split(/r?n/)
.map(line => line.trim())
.filter(line => line.length > 0);
await mkdir('screenshots', { recursive: true });
const browser = await chromium.launch({ headless: true });
try {
const page = await browser.newPage({ viewport: { width: 1440, height: 900 } });
for (const [index, url] of urls.entries()) {
const response = await page.goto(url, { waitUntil: 'networkidle', timeout: 60000 });
const name = `${String(index + 1).padStart(4, '0')}-${basename(new URL(url).pathname) || 'home'}`;
const safeName = name.replace(/[^a-zA-Z0-9._-]/g, '_');
await page.screenshot({ path: `screenshots/${safeName}.png`, fullPage: true });
console.log(`${response?.status() ?? 'no response'} ${url} -> screenshots/${safeName}.png`);
}
} finally {
await browser.close();
}The index prefix makes filenames unique even when URLs have the same final path segment. If runs must be comparable over time, replace the index-based name with a stable page identifier from your input data. If the target requires login, add a deliberate authentication method and protect any resulting screenshots as sensitive artifacts.
2. Run it in a GitLab job
GitLab’s and Playwright’s documented CI pattern uses a Playwright Docker image. This configuration follows that pattern and is illustrative; match the image tag to the Playwright package version you use, and check the current Playwright CI guidance because image tags change.
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stages:
- capture
screenshots:
stage: capture
image: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright:v1.63.0-noble
script:
- npm ci
- node capture.mjs
artifacts:
when: always
paths:
- screenshots/
expire_in: 1 weekThis assumes the project has a committed package-lock.json and the script creates screenshots/. The artifact path is relative to the job’s repository checkout. when: always and one-week retention are example choices, not universal defaults; GitLab’s default is to upload artifacts for successful jobs, and it also supports on_failure and always.
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Shard a Playwright Test suite across GitLab jobs
If screenshots are generated by Playwright Test tests, GitLab can start multiple instances of the same job, while the shard arguments tell Playwright which portion of the suite each instance should run. Each shard must save distinct output names; otherwise separate jobs may create ambiguous files when artifacts are downloaded together.
stages:
- capture
screenshots:
stage: capture
image: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright:v1.63.0-noble
parallel: 4
script:
- npm ci
- npx playwright test --shard=$CI_NODE_INDEX/$CI_NODE_TOTAL
artifacts:
when: always
paths:
- screenshots/
expire_in: 1 weekIn this configuration GitLab sets CI_NODE_INDEX and CI_NODE_TOTAL for the parallel instances. The Playwright Test suite must be set up to produce the screenshots, and the suite’s test cases—not a separate URL array—are what the shard option divides.
When browser projects also need separate jobs
Use parallel:matrix when you want job combinations such as browser projects and shard values. This creates combinations of declared variables; your script or Playwright configuration must consume those variables, and filenames should identify the relevant browser or project as well as the page.
screenshots:
stage: capture
image: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright:v1.63.0-noble
parallel:
matrix:
- PROJECT: [chromium, firefox]
SHARD: ['1/2', '2/2']
script:
- npm ci
- npx playwright test --project=$PROJECT --shard=$SHARD
artifacts:
when: always
paths:
- screenshots/
expire_in: 1 weekEach additional browser-project and shard combination adds another job, browser execution, and potential artifact output. Use this only when the extra coverage is worth the runtime, resource use, and storage.
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Set parallelism to match runner capacity
GitLab’s current YAML reference documents parallel values from 1 through 200. That is a configuration range, not a throughput promise. Jobs need available runner concurrency; excess jobs can queue, and instance-level active-job limits can constrain pipeline execution.
- Use enough parallel jobs to make use of available runners, without flooding the target site with requests.
- Account for CPU, memory, browser processes, and any rate limits or access controls imposed by the pages being captured.
- Start with Playwright’s one-worker-per-job CI default, then adjust only when runner resources and stability support it.
- Expect total elapsed time to depend on queueing, page load behavior, and resource contention; no universal screenshot throughput is established by the documentation.
If you have only one available runner slot, adding parallel job instances may increase queue time rather than reduce the time until all captures finish.
Keep and secure the screenshot artifacts
Declare output directories under artifacts:paths to archive them. Choose expire_in based on how long the team needs the files; if omitted, the GitLab instance’s default applies. Later stages fetch earlier-stage artifacts by default, while dependencies and needs:artifacts let a pipeline control which outputs they fetch.
GitLab documents a default maximum final artifact archive size of 100 MB. This limit is for the final archive, not a stated per-image cap. If an archive approaches the effective limit, reduce capture dimensions or pages per shard, split output across archives, or ask an administrator about the configured project or instance limit.
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Screenshots can expose account data, internal pages, or any content visible to the runner. Set artifact access deliberately with GitLab’s artifact access controls, and do not publish internal captures as a public Pages site without checking who can access them. GitLab notes that UI and API artifact controls do not necessarily prevent access through runner APIs using job tokens.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Troubleshoot common failures
- No screenshots appear in the job artifact: confirm the script writes to the directory named in
artifacts:paths, that the path is relative to the checkout, and that artifact upload is enabled for the job result you are investigating. - Some shard jobs produce no relevant captures: check that the command uses
--shard=$CI_NODE_INDEX/$CI_NODE_TOTALand that the work is defined as Playwright Test tests. A standalone URL-list script needs its own partitioning logic. - Parallel outputs collide or are hard to identify: include a stable page identifier in filenames; for browser matrices, include the project or browser too. Separate GitLab jobs do not share a live filesystem, but similarly named files can be confusing when artifacts are retrieved together.
- Jobs remain pending or take longer than expected: check runner availability and concurrency and any active-job limits. Increasing
paralleldoes not create runner capacity. - Navigation times out or the image is incomplete: inspect the target’s load behavior and access requirements. The sample waits for
networkidle, which may be unsuitable for pages with continuing network activity; select a readiness condition appropriate to the site and handle authentication or lazy-loaded content explicitly. - The artifact is too large: inspect the total archive, not just individual images, and reduce resolution or work per archive, or verify the effective GitLab size limit.
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