[Bug]: VS code extension says: No Playwright tests found.

[Sbrjt]

Version

1.61.1

Steps to reproduce

1. Clone my repo at https://github.com/Sbrjt/playwright
2. npm install
3. npx playwright test
4. The tests run from terminal, but the vscode extension says "No Playwright tests found."

If I open in Kiro I can see the tests tho.

Expected behavior

Works in Kiro (based on VS Code 1.107.1)

Actual behavior

Not working in VS Code

Additional context

No response

Environment

System:
    OS: Windows 11 10.0.26200
    CPU: (18) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 5 125H
    Memory: 271.54 MB / 15.61 GB
  Binaries:
    Node: 24.13.0 - C:\nvm4w\nodejs\node.EXE
    npm: 11.14.1 - C:\nvm4w\nodejs\npm.CMD
  IDEs:
    VSCode: 1.126.0 - C:\Program Files\Microsoft VS Code\bin\code.CMD
  npmPackages:
    @playwright/test: ^1.61.1 => 1.61.1

[github-actions]

Hi, I'm the Playwright bot and I took a first look at this.

This is a VS Code extension issue, not a bug in the test runner. Your repo is a stock npm init playwright scaffold — standard playwright.config.ts (testDir: './tests'), one tests/example.spec.ts, single chromium project — and you confirm npx playwright test runs fine. So test discovery itself works; the "No Playwright tests found" message is coming from the Playwright Test extension in your VS Code, not from Playwright core.

The telling detail is that it works in Kiro (VS Code 1.107.1) but not in VS Code 1.126.0. That almost always comes down to a difference between the two editors — most commonly a different installed version of the Playwright Test extension, or the extension host resolving a different Node. I can't reproduce a GUI extension problem in a headless CI environment, so I couldn't narrow it further from here.

To move this forward, could you share:

1. The Playwright Test extension version in each editor (Extensions panel → Playwright Test → the version string). Are they the same in Kiro and VS Code?
2. The extension's log from the failing VS Code: Testing view → ··· menu (or Output panel) → Playwright channel — the output around startup/discovery usually says why it found nothing.

What I checked

• Repo: https://github.com/Sbrjt/playwright (default scaffold)
  • playwright.config.ts — unmodified, testDir: './tests', chromium-only
  • tests/example.spec.ts present; package.json has "type": "module" (fine for the runner)
  • You report npx playwright test passes from the terminal, and Kiro discovers the tests
• Conclusion: config and discovery are valid; the failure is editor-/extension-specific, not a Playwright test-runner bug
• Note: this belongs to playwright-vscode — that's still us, no need to refile

Triaged by the Playwright bot — run: https://github.com/microsoft/playwright/actions/runs/28644424817

[Sbrjt]

On both IDEs, I'm on:

Identifier: ms-playwright.playwright
Version: 1.1.19

I'm not sure how to get the extension's log.

In output panel I found these:

[github-actions]

Thanks for the extra details — the matching version numbers are the key clue here.

Since you're on the same extension version (1.1.19) in both editors, my earlier guess about differing extension versions is off the table. Same machine, same repo, same Node — the only variable left is the editor build itself: it works in Kiro (VS Code 1.107.1) and fails in VS Code 1.126.0. That points at an incompatibility between the extension and that specific VS Code build, which is on us to sort out (it's the Playwright VS Code extension, not the test runner).

I can't reproduce a GUI extension problem in a headless CI environment, so I can't confirm it from here — but the log you pasted is actually helpful. Those two lines (Starting to rebuild models → Finished rebuilding models) are the extension's own model rebuild, and it completed cleanly with no error. That means the rebuild ran but produced no tests, and the reason isn't being surfaced in the Playwright output channel — it goes to the extension host instead.

To find out why discovery comes back empty, could you grab two more things from the failing VS Code:

1. Output panel → "Extension Host" channel (same dropdown where you selected "Playwright"), filtered to playwright. Any error thrown while resolving Playwright or listing tests lands there, not in the Playwright channel.
2. Confirm the workspace path is identical in both editors — in particular whether one of them opened the folder through a junction/symlink or with different drive-letter casing (common with nvm4w/Windows setups). Right-clicking the root folder → Copy Path in each editor is the quickest check.

That should tell us whether it's the resolve step failing or the test list coming back empty, and we can take it from there.

---

_{🔍 Triage run}

[Sbrjt]

I tried with a fresh vs code profile and the extension worked there.

In my settings.json I had:

"files.exclude": {
  "**/*config*": true,
}

If I uncomment that I can see the tests. Sorry I didn't try this earlier.

Edit: Can you enable searching hidden files here?

[github-actions]

That's the answer — thanks for finding it, and no need to apologize.

Confirmed: this is a real bug in the Playwright VS Code extension's config discovery, triggered by your files.exclude setting. Your "**/*config*": true matches playwright.config.ts, and the extension finds config files with vscode.workspace.findFiles('**/*playwright*.config.{ts,js,mts,mjs}', '**/node_modules/**', ...). Plain findFiles honors files.exclude (and search.exclude), so the excluded config never turns up, no models get built, and you get "No Playwright tests found." That's why the rebuild ran cleanly and produced nothing, and why Kiro (which didn't carry that setting into its profile) worked — the fresh-profile test you did nails it.

The right fix lives in the extension: config discovery shouldn't be at the mercy of a user's files.exclude/search.exclude, since the config is machinery the extension needs regardless of what's hidden in the file tree. That's a change on our side.

In the meantime, you can unblock yourself by narrowing the exclude so it doesn't swallow the Playwright config, e.g.:

"files.exclude": {
  "**/*.config.*": false
}

or scoping your original glob to whatever you were actually trying to hide.

_{🔍 Triage run}

[Skn0tt]

According to VSCode's docs: "A glob pattern that defines files and folders to exclude. The glob pattern will be matched against the file paths of resulting matches relative to their workspace. When undefined, default file-excludes (e.g. the files.exclude-setting but not search.exclude) will apply. When null, no excludes will apply."