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Self-signed certificates

By default Playwright validates TLS certificates like a real browser, so a target using a self-signed or internally-issued certificate makes every page.goto(...) fail with net::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID before the test logic even runs.

There is no plugin-level toggle for this — it is set explicitly in the transaction with Playwright's own test.use():

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';

test.use({ ignoreHTTPSErrors: true });

test('checkout flow', async ({ page }) => {
  await page.goto('https://internal.example.com');
  // ...
});
  • test.use({ ignoreHTTPSErrors: true }) at the top level of the file applies to every test(...) below it.
  • To scope it to only some tests in the same file, wrap them in their own test.describe(...) block and call test.use({ ignoreHTTPSErrors: true }) as the first line inside that block instead of at the top level.
  • This only disables certificate validation, not TLS itself — the connection stays encrypted, it just no longer requires a trusted CA chain.
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