fix(trace): keep client paths out of remote launch options

[Devin Rousso (dcrousso)]

remote browser servers can receive Playwright Test worker paths and try to write trace files on the client filesystem

remove artifactsDir and tracesDir from remote launch options

fixes#42394

[github-actions]

Test results for "tests 1"

5 flaky

⚠️ [chromium-library] › library/video.spec.ts:699 › screencast › should capture full viewport on hidpi `@chromium-ubuntu-22.04-node20`
⚠️ [chromium-library] › library/video.spec.ts:736 › screencast › should work with video+trace `@chromium-ubuntu-22.04-node20`
⚠️ [chromium-library] › library/chromium/chromium.spec.ts:436 › should produce network events, routing, and annotations for Service Worker (advanced) `@chromium-ubuntu-22.04-node22`
⚠️ [firefox-page] › page/page-event-request.spec.ts:181 › should return response body when Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy is set `@firefox-ubuntu-22.04-node20`
⚠️ [playwright-test] › ui-mode-trace.spec.ts:778 › should partition action tree state by test `@windows-latest-node22`

51325 passed, 1239 skipped

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Merge workflow run.

[github-actions]

Test results for "MCP"

1 failed
❌ [firefox] › mcp/annotate.spec.ts:446 › should switch screencast to -s session on show --annotate @mcp-windows-latest-firefox

8258 passed, 1361 skipped

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Merge workflow run.

[github-actions]

Hi, I'm the Playwright bot and I took a look at the CI failures here.

🟢 The PR is clear — the one failure is a pre-existing Firefox flake

The single red test, mcp/annotate.spec.ts:446 › should switch screencast to -s session on show --annotate, has nothing to do with this change. This PR only strips artifactsDir/tracesDir from remote launch options in the Playwright Test connect path; it doesn't touch the MCP screencast/annotate flow. And the test flips verdict on its own: on Firefox it failed 31 of 715 runs (~4%) and passed 684, across SHAs unrelated to this PR. The tests 1 report has no failures at all — only flakes rescued on retry.

Details

Overall: no failure is attributable to this PR. One real red, confirmed pre-existing flake; the rest is retry-rescued noise.

Pre-existing flake / infra

• [firefox] › mcp/annotate.spec.ts:446 › should switch screencast to -s session on show --annotate (@mcp-windows-latest-firefox) — pre-existing Firefox flake. Cross-run history for this test: chrome 3/731 fail, chromium 2/727, webkit 1/731, msedge 0/717, and firefox 31/715 (~4%) — bimodal, on unrelated SHAs. The PR's diff (packages/playwright/src/index.ts remote launch options + a connect test) never reaches the MCP screencast/annotate code path. Recent Firefox run history, oldest→newest:

  🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟥🟥🟥🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟥🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟥🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟥🟩🟥

• The tests 1 report's 5 ⚠️ entries (video.spec.ts:699/:736, chromium.spec.ts:436, page-event-request.spec.ts:181, ui-mode-trace.spec.ts:778) are flaky-passed-on-retry, not failures — nothing to triage.

_{Triaged by the Playwright bot - agent run}

[Arkadiusz Czekajski (aczekajski)]

A bit of a nitpick, but it seems like the options coming from the x-playwright-launch-options header are filtered on the server side to begin with here:

playwright/packages/playwright-core/src/remote/playwrightServer.ts

Line 112 in 20e2f50

launchOptions=filterLaunchOptions(launchOptions,isExtension||!!this._options.unsafe);

and the filtering function looking like this:

playwright/packages/playwright-core/src/remote/playwrightServer.ts

Lines 368 to 384 in 20e2f50

	functionfilterLaunchOptions(options: LaunchOptionsWithTimeout,allowUnsafe: boolean): LaunchOptionsWithTimeout{
	return{
	channel: options.channel,
	args: allowUnsafe ? options.args : undefined,
	ignoreAllDefaultArgs: allowUnsafe ? options.ignoreAllDefaultArgs : undefined,
	ignoreDefaultArgs: allowUnsafe ? options.ignoreDefaultArgs : undefined,
	timeout: options.timeout,
	headless: options.headless,
	proxy: options.proxy,
	chromiumSandbox: allowUnsafe ? options.chromiumSandbox : undefined,
	firefoxUserPrefs: (isUnderTest()||allowUnsafe) ? options.firefoxUserPrefs : undefined,
	slowMo: options.slowMo,
	executablePath: (isUnderTest()||allowUnsafe) ? options.executablePath : undefined,
	downloadsPath: allowUnsafe ? options.downloadsPath : undefined,
	artifactsDir: (isUnderTest()||allowUnsafe) ? options.artifactsDir : undefined,
	};
	}

so the tracesDir was being filtered out anyway and artifactsDir was in fact allowed only when isUnsafe was being passed. And it is true that in my case where I had an error, I was launching the server with --usafe flag. My guess is that passing artifactsDir as a launch option is something used by the extension so it cannot be completely filtered out in there. Maybe the that filtering fn should make a distinction between "extension mode" and "--unsafe"? 🤔

[Arkadiusz Czekajski (aczekajski)]

Btw backporting just this small change to 1.62.1 also makes the apiRequestContext._wrapApiCall: End of central directory record signature not found. Either not a zip file, or file is truncated error gone for me ^^

[Dmitry Gozman (dgozman)]

Filters like this should be done on the server side. In fact, we already do something along these lines in packages/playwright-core/src/remote/playwrightServer.ts (see filterLaunchOptions) - why doesn't that work?