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Use the Recorder

The recorder helps you capture a real browser journey and convert it into Gherkin you can review before saving.

Use it when describing a flow from memory would be slower than performing the flow once.

Start a test with Record browser, pick the environment, and sign in on the site in the separate browser window while the timeline fills in live. Finish turns the steps into Gherkin for review, with the login held back as a project variable and secret rather than written into the test, and Save & Validate regenerates the Playwright code.

When To Use The Recorder​

The recorder is useful for:

SituationWhy it helps
A flow has many clicks or fieldsRecording captures the journey while you perform it.
The UI labels are hard to rememberThe recorded flow can help produce more concrete steps.
You are documenting an existing workflowYou can walk through the product and review the output.
You want a first draftThe generated Gherkin can be edited before saving.

Do not treat recorder output as final without review. It is a starting point.

Start Recording​

  1. Open Tests and select or create a test.
  2. For an existing test, use … → Record.
  3. For a new test, choose Record browser in New test.
  4. If the feature already has content, TestVibe asks you to confirm recording over it first. A blank feature skips this.
  5. Pick which environment to record against. Before launching, TestVibe checks that a cloud browser can reach that site — if it can't (a private, VPN-only, or localhost URL with no tunnel), it offers Connect a tunnel or Record anyway rather than launching a recording that couldn't be validated. See Environment availability.
  6. Install the TestVibe Recorder extension if prompted. The launch page then opens showing the chosen site read-only, with a single Begin recording button — click it to start.
  7. Interact with the target site — click, type, and navigate as a user would. Each action streams live into the drawer's timeline back in TestVibe.
  8. Choose Finish in TestVibe to turn the steps into a reviewable Gherkin scenario.

TestVibe updates the timeline live while recorder events are received. Full-page and cross-origin navigation during recording is captured, not lost — the navigation itself becomes a step, and recording keeps going after the page changes.

If a recording finishes with no actionable steps (only scrolling or navigating, no clicks or typed input), TestVibe says so honestly and offers Discard or Record again — it never presents an empty result as something to save.

Review The Output​

Before saving, check that the Gherkin:

ReviewWhat to look for
Feature nameIt should describe the user journey, not the recording session.
Scenario focusIt should cover one behavior, not every action you tried.
Step wordingSteps should be readable and user-facing.
AssertionsThe scenario should include clear Then outcomes.
Sensitive dataPasswords, tokens, and private values should not be saved in plain text.

Edit the preview before saving when the wording needs cleanup.

Credentials Are Tokenized​

When you type into a password or a username/email field during a login recording, TestVibe replaces the value in the recorded test with a reference. The password becomes a {{secret:PASSWORD}} token and the username becomes a {{var:USERNAME}} token; the actual values are stored as the project's secret and variable and are omitted from the authored Gherkin and the names-only capture summary. The review drawer confirms which credentials were captured, by name only. See Add API keys and secrets.

Save And Validate​

When you finish, the review drawer offers two actions:

ActionWhat it does
Save & ValidateSaves the reviewed Gherkin as the feature, then regenerates the Playwright code through the standard generation engine — so the saved test is authored and verified the same way any generated test is.
DiscardThrows the recording away. It confirms first if you have unsaved steps.

There is no separate Verify step and no cold replay of the recorded selectors — Save & Validate always regenerates. The recorded journey becomes the input to generation and verification; validation can still fail. Watch the work in the generation conversation (use View progress on the test while it runs). Closing the drawer during review discards the recording; your steps are only kept once you choose Save & Validate.

Recording Tips​

  • Start from a stable page.
  • Use a test account, not a personal account.
  • Pause and plan the journey before clicking.
  • Avoid exploratory clicks that do not belong in the final test.
  • Add or improve final assertions after recording.
  • Remove any accidental sensitive text before saving.

After Validation​

Once Save & Validate finishes:

  1. Review the generated Playwright code and the generation output.
  2. Run the test.
  3. Use results to refine the feature.

If the generated test does too much, split the recorded journey into smaller scenarios and record them separately.