Re-run failed Playwright tests

Re-run takes a finished test run and executes only the test cases that failed or were flaky in it. Start one from the test run page, a terminal, or an AI agent. For a test run from GitHub Actions, This commit re-runs the failed jobs inside the original GitHub run, so that run’s own red check can turn green. No workflow change is needed for it.

Re-run requires the @testdino/playwright npm package at 2.7.0 or later, and Playwright 1.56 or later. Check yours with npm ls @testdino/playwright. An earlier version exits with error: unknown option '--rerun'.Re-running inside the original GitHub run needs 2.7.8 or later. On an earlier version the failed jobs still re-run, in full.

Quick Reference

Topic	Link	Best for
Dashboard button	Start a re-run from the dashboard	A test run you are already reading
Scope the selection	Choose which test cases run	Narrowing to your own failures
Same or new code	Choose which code runs	Telling a flaky test from a real failure
Turn the red check green	Re-run inside the original GitHub run	A red commit you want green without a new run
Tags	Add tags to a re-run	Finding a re-run later
Repository setup	Enable the dashboard button	Turning on one-click re-runs
Terminal	Re-run from the command line	CI without GitHub, or scripting
Agents	Re-run from an AI agent	Agent-driven fix loops

Start a re-run from the dashboard

Re-run sits in the action row right of the tab strip on a test run’s page, next to Debug with AI. It appears once the test run has finished and carries at least 1 failed or flaky test case. A test run reporting passed still shows it when the run carries flaky test cases. Re-run panel open on a test run page showing the Failed scope, the selected count, the Run against choice, the workflow, and the Re-run button

Re-run panel open on a test run page showing the Failed scope, the selected count, the Run against choice, the workflow, and the Re-run button

The panel shows the count that will run as 7 of 9 selected, the code choice, and the workflow that will run it. The button states what happens:

Button reads	Meaning
`Re-run 6 failed tests`	The scope’s test cases, on the original commit
`Re-run 11 tests on latest`	The scope’s test cases, on the branch tip
`Re-run 3 selected tests`	A hand-picked subset
`Re-run failed jobs in full`	The failed jobs, inside the original GitHub run, with every test case in them
`Select tests to re-run`	Nothing is ticked, so the button is disabled

The new test run appears in the run list once CI picks it up, marked Re-run of #N and linked to the run it came from. It carries the original test run’s run-level tags, so it shows up under the same tag filters. The original test run lists its re-runs under its header. See Test Runs.

Choose which test cases run

Choice	Selects
Failed	Test cases that failed, including timeouts. The default.
Flaky	Test cases that passed only after a retry.
Both	Failed and flaky together.
Custom	Test cases you tick by hand.

Custom appears when there is more than 1 test case to choose between. On large test runs it adds a search box and a group-by choice for spec file, failure reason, or browser. Re-run panel in Custom scope showing hand-ticked test cases, the search box, and the group-by choice

Re-run panel in Custom scope showing hand-ticked test cases, the search box, and the group-by choice

Choose which code runs

Run against offers 2 options, and they answer different questions:

Option	What runs	What the result tells you
This commit	The commit the original test run used	Still failing is a real failure. Passing now means the test case is flaky.
Latest on `<branch>`	The current branch tip	Whether a fix that landed since works.

On a test run from GitHub Actions, This commit re-runs inside the original GitHub run instead of starting a new one. See Re-run inside the original GitHub run. Latest always starts a new workflow run. For a re-run that starts a new workflow run, This commit is unavailable, with the reason shown, when the original test run recorded no commit or only an abbreviated one, or when the workflow does not declare testdino_rerun_sha. A test run made outside CI with uncommitted changes keeps This commit, with a note that the re-run uses the commit as pushed, without those changes. Latest is unavailable when the test run recorded no branch or the branch is gone; the re-run then dispatches on the default branch, still pinned to the original commit. When the branch tip is still the original commit, the panel says so: both options run the same code.

Re-run inside the original GitHub run

When the test run came from GitHub Actions, This commit re-runs its failed jobs as a new attempt of that same GitHub run. If they pass, that run and the commit’s check turn green, with no second workflow run in the commit’s check list. The panel says so before you click:

The failed jobs run again inside GitHub run #124. If they pass, that run turns green. Only the failed tests run again.

No workflow change is needed. This commit takes this path when all of these hold:

The test run came from a GitHub Actions run in the repository connected to the project.
The TestDino GitHub App has the Actions permission.
The scope is Failed or Both. Flaky and Custom start a new workflow run instead.

The click is refused, with the reason, while the GitHub run is still in progress or once it is more than 30 days old. Use Latest to start a new workflow run instead.

Run only the failed test cases in each job

Each retried job runs only the test cases that failed in it when the job runs npx tdpw test with @testdino/playwright 2.7.8 or later. Your job’s command stays the same. Otherwise every test case in the failed jobs runs again, and the button reads Re-run failed jobs in full. The panel shows Every test in the failed jobs will run again with the change to make. The job log prints the reason on each full run.

Case	What to do
The workflow runs `npx playwright test`	Switch the command to `npx tdpw test`.
`@testdino/playwright` is older than 2.7.8	Update the package.
A test case in the job has no result from the earlier attempt, after a cancelled shard, a crashed job, or a time-out	Nothing to do. The whole job runs.
The same Playwright project runs in more than 1 job, such as an operating system or Node version matrix	Nothing to do. A browser matrix built from Playwright projects is unaffected.
The re-run was started from GitHub’s own Re-run failed jobs button	Start the re-run from TestDino instead.

How a re-run counts in your metrics

A re-run is left out of run-level figures: test run count, pass rate, and average duration. Its test cases still appear in test-level views, and it is billed like any test run.

Add tags to a re-run

A re-run keeps the original test run’s run-level tags. A dashboard re-run starts as a workflow_dispatch with no pull request context, so tags your workflow builds from the pull request still arrive, copied from the original. No workflow change is needed for this. To label a single re-run, type tags into Extra tags in the panel, separated by commas, for example hotfix-retry. They are added on top of the inherited tags:

At most 10 tags per re-run.
Letters, digits and . _ : / @ + - only, starting with a letter or digit.
When the combined list goes over the 50-tag limit per test run, the re-run’s own tags, extra tags included, are kept and the inherited ones are trimmed.

Extra tags need the testdino_rerun_tags workflow input (see Enable the dashboard button) and @testdino/playwright 2.7.6 or later. On a workflow without the input, the panel refuses tags before anything starts. A re-run inside the original GitHub run keeps that run’s tags and cannot add more. To tag a re-run, pick Latest to start a new workflow run.

Enable the dashboard button

Re-running inside the original GitHub run needs no workflow inputs. The rest of this section is for the other paths: Latest, the Flaky and Custom scopes, and any test run that did not come from GitHub Actions. Connect GitHub to the project in Project settings, under Integrations, and grant the TestDino GitHub App permission to start workflows. Then declare the re-run inputs on a workflow. Either shape works, because TestDino offers any active workflow that declares testdino_rerun_from:

Choice	Pick it when
Existing workflow	You want one workflow definition to maintain. It keeps its normal triggers and gains a re-run path.
Separate workflow	You want re-runs isolated: their own logs, their own concurrency, no change to the workflow CI already runs.

Existing workflow
Separate workflow

Add workflow_dispatch and the inputs to the workflow you already run Playwright with. The if [ -n "$TD_RERUN_FROM" ] guard is what keeps a normal push unchanged: on a push the input is empty, so no re-run arguments are added.

.github/workflows/playwright.yml

on:
  push:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      testdino_rerun_from:
        required: true
      testdino_rerun_scope:
        default: failed
      testdino_rerun_test_ids:
        required: false
      testdino_rerun_exclude_ids:
        required: false
      testdino_rerun_sha:
        required: false
      testdino_rerun_tags:
        required: false

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_sha || github.sha }}
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
      - run: npm ci
      - name: Run tests
        env:
          TESTDINO_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.TESTDINO_TOKEN }}
          TD_RERUN_FROM: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_from }}
          TD_RERUN_SCOPE: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_scope }}
          TD_RERUN_TEST_IDS: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_test_ids }}
          TD_RERUN_EXCLUDE_IDS: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_exclude_ids }}
          TD_RERUN_TAGS: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_tags }}
        shell: bash
        run: |
          args=()
          if [ -n "$TD_RERUN_FROM" ]; then
            args+=(--rerun "${TD_RERUN_SCOPE:-failed}" --from-run "$TD_RERUN_FROM")
            if [ -n "$TD_RERUN_TEST_IDS" ]; then
              args+=(--test-ids "$TD_RERUN_TEST_IDS")
            fi
            if [ -n "$TD_RERUN_EXCLUDE_IDS" ]; then
              args+=(--exclude-ids "$TD_RERUN_EXCLUDE_IDS")
            fi
            if [ -n "$TD_RERUN_TAGS" ]; then
              args+=(--rerun-tags "$TD_RERUN_TAGS")
            fi
          fi
          npx tdpw test "${args[@]}"

A workflow that only ever runs a re-run needs no guard: workflow_dispatch is its only trigger and testdino_rerun_from is required, so the input is always present.

.github/workflows/rerun.yml

name: Re-run failed tests

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      testdino_rerun_from:
        required: true
      testdino_rerun_scope:
        default: failed
      testdino_rerun_test_ids:
        required: false
      testdino_rerun_exclude_ids:
        required: false
      testdino_rerun_sha:
        required: false
      testdino_rerun_tags:
        required: false

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_sha || github.sha }}
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
      - run: npm ci
      - name: Run the selected tests
        env:
          TESTDINO_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.TESTDINO_TOKEN }}
          TD_RERUN_FROM: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_from }}
          TD_RERUN_SCOPE: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_scope }}
          TD_RERUN_TEST_IDS: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_test_ids }}
          TD_RERUN_EXCLUDE_IDS: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_exclude_ids }}
          TD_RERUN_TAGS: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_tags }}
        shell: bash
        run: |
          args=(--rerun "${TD_RERUN_SCOPE:-failed}" --from-run "$TD_RERUN_FROM")
          if [ -n "$TD_RERUN_TEST_IDS" ]; then
            args+=(--test-ids "$TD_RERUN_TEST_IDS")
          fi
          if [ -n "$TD_RERUN_EXCLUDE_IDS" ]; then
            args+=(--exclude-ids "$TD_RERUN_EXCLUDE_IDS")
          fi
          if [ -n "$TD_RERUN_TAGS" ]; then
            args+=(--rerun-tags "$TD_RERUN_TAGS")
          fi
          npx tdpw test "${args[@]}"

TestDino reads the workflow files on the test run’s branch and offers only the ones that declare these inputs. A workflow file that is not on that branch cannot run the re-run, and the panel names it under the workflow picker.

Input	Required?	Without it
`testdino_rerun_from`	Yes	The workflow is not offered for re-runs.
`testdino_rerun_scope`	Recommended	Only Failed can be sent.
`testdino_rerun_test_ids` and `testdino_rerun_exclude_ids`	For Custom	The workflow cannot receive a hand-picked list, and the panel says so.
`testdino_rerun_sha`	For This commit	Only Latest can be sent.
`testdino_rerun_tags`	For Extra tags	The panel refuses tags for this workflow.

A workflow that declares testdino_rerun_sha without passing it to checkout reports a same-commit re-run while running current code. The ref: line above is what makes the pin real.

The workflow file itself always comes from the branch tip, so a same-commit re-run runs the original test code under your current pipeline definition.

Re-run from the command line

Without a GitHub connection the panel gives you this command under Run manually, with the id lists filled in:

npx tdpw test --rerun failed --from-run test_run_a66fa0ee4f7a28ef5986e907

Before running anything, the CLI checks the selection against the code you have checked out. Test cases renamed, moved, or deleted since the original test run, or filtered out by your Playwright arguments such as --project, are skipped. The warning names them (up to 10) and the original test run by its number and commit, with a link to it. To run them unchanged, re-run on This commit or check out that commit. If none of them match, the CLI stops with an error rather than reporting a green test run that executed nothing.

CLI flags

Flag	Description
`--rerun <scope>`	`failed`, `flaky`, or `failed-and-flaky`.
`--from-run <runId>`	The test run to re-run from. Required with `--rerun`.
`--test-ids <ids>`	Comma-separated test case ids to run, overriding the scope.
`--exclude-ids <ids>`	Comma-separated test case ids to drop from the scope.
`--rerun-tags <tags>`	Comma-separated run tags added to the re-run, on top of its own and inherited tags. Falls back to `TESTDINO_RERUN_TAGS`. Refused without `--rerun`. Requires 2.7.6 or later.

--rerun is refused alongside a Playwright argument that would fight the selection: --grep, --grep-invert, --last-failed, --test-list, and --shard. Full flag reference in @testdino/playwright.

Re-run from an AI agent

Tool	Does
`get_rerun_selection`	Resolves which test cases would run, plus the command. Nothing starts.
`rerun_test`	Starts the GitHub Actions workflow for that selection.

rerun_test runs only after you have seen the selection and said yes, so an agent cannot spend CI minutes on its own. Parameters for both are in the MCP tools reference.

Troubleshooting

error: unknown option '--rerun'

The project resolves npx tdpw to a CLI older than 2.7.0, which passes the flag through to Playwright. Upgrade @testdino/playwright to 2.7.0 or later.

The re-run ran every test, not just the failures

The job log line that starts with TestDino: running the full command on this GitHub retry gives the reason. The usual causes are a workflow running npx playwright test instead of npx tdpw test, or @testdino/playwright older than 2.7.8. A test case with no result from the earlier attempt, or the same Playwright project running in more than 1 job, also runs the whole job, and no setting changes that. See Run only the failed test cases in each job.

No workflow is offered in the panel

No workflow on the branch declares a testdino_rerun_from input, or the TestDino GitHub App lacks permission to start workflows. The panel falls back to the terminal command. See Enable the dashboard button.

Results are still being processed

The test run finished seconds ago and its results are still being read. The panel updates itself; the CLI waits. This is not the same as having nothing to re-run.

Some test cases are listed as needing a manual run

Playwright identifies a test case by its full name, splitting the parts on › and trimming each one, with no escape for either. A title containing that separator, or starting or ending with a space, a non-breaking space, or a line break, cannot be requested exactly.Those test cases are listed separately everywhere the selection appears, and the selected count excludes them, so a re-run never reports success for a test case it could not execute. Run them with your usual Playwright command, or rename the test case.

This commit is unavailable

The original test run recorded no commit or only an abbreviated one, so there is no commit to pin to, or the workflow does not declare testdino_rerun_sha. The panel shows which. Use Latest, or add testdino_rerun_sha to the workflow and pass it to checkout as shown in Enable the dashboard button.

GitHub shows the branch tip for a This commit re-run

GitHub starts a dispatched workflow from a branch, never a single commit, so the workflow run page shows the branch tip. The ref: line in checkout then switches the job to the commit you picked. The HEAD is now at line in the checkout step’s log and the commit on the new test run in TestDino both show the pinned commit.To name the pinned commit on GitHub too, add a top-level run-name next to name: in the workflow. Other test runs keep their default title.

run-name: ${{ inputs.testdino_rerun_from != '' && format('TestDino re-run @ {0}', inputs.testdino_rerun_sha || 'branch tip') || '' }}

Debug with AI

Hand a failure to your coding agent from the same action row.

Flaky tests

How TestDino decides a test case is flaky.

Test run details

The run page this panel opens from.

GitHub Actions

Reporting Playwright results from GitHub Actions.

Getting Started

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Guides

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Resources

Quick Reference

Start a re-run from the dashboard

Choose which test cases run

Choose which code runs

Re-run inside the original GitHub run

Run only the failed test cases in each job

How a re-run counts in your metrics

Add tags to a re-run

Enable the dashboard button

Re-run from the command line

CLI flags

Re-run from an AI agent

Troubleshooting

Debug with AI

Flaky tests

Test run details

GitHub Actions

​Quick Reference

​Start a re-run from the dashboard

​Choose which test cases run

​Choose which code runs

​Re-run inside the original GitHub run

​Run only the failed test cases in each job

​How a re-run counts in your metrics

​Add tags to a re-run

​Enable the dashboard button

​Re-run from the command line

​CLI flags

​Re-run from an AI agent

​Troubleshooting

​Related

Debug with AI

Flaky tests

Test run details

GitHub Actions

Quick Reference

Start a re-run from the dashboard

Choose which test cases run

Choose which code runs

Re-run inside the original GitHub run

Run only the failed test cases in each job

How a re-run counts in your metrics

Add tags to a re-run

Enable the dashboard button

Re-run from the command line

CLI flags

Re-run from an AI agent

Troubleshooting

Related