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CI workflow

You can use a CI workflow to run end-to-end tests that allow you to continuously check for breakages. We recommend using the following GitHub workflows for every PR in your GitHub repository to run end-to-end tests against a range of Grafana versions.

note

These are generic examples based on frontend and backend plugins. You may need to alter or remove some of the steps in the playwright-tests job before using it in your plugin.

Backend plugin workflow

.github/workflows/e2e.yml
name: E2E tests
on:
  pull_request:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 11 * * *' #Run e2e tests once a day at 11 UTC

permissions:
  contents: read
  id-token: write

jobs:
  resolve-versions:
    name: Resolve Grafana images
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    timeout-minutes: 3
    outputs:
      matrix: ${{ steps.resolve-versions.outputs.matrix }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Resolve Grafana E2E versions
        id: resolve-versions
        uses: grafana/plugin-actions/e2e-version@main

  playwright-tests:
    needs: resolve-versions
    timeout-minutes: 60
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        GRAFANA_IMAGE: ${{fromJson(needs.resolve-versions.outputs.matrix)}}
    name: e2e ${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.name }}@${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.VERSION }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js environment
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version-file: .nvmrc

      - name: Install npm dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Install Mage
        uses: magefile/mage-action@v3
        with:
          install-only: true

      - name: Build binaries
        run: mage -v build:linux

      - name: Build frontend
        run: npm run build

      - name: Install Playwright Browsers
        run: npx playwright install --with-deps

      - name: Start Grafana
        run: |
          docker compose pull
          GRAFANA_VERSION=${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.VERSION }} GRAFANA_IMAGE=${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.NAME }} docker compose up -d

      - name: Wait for grafana server
        uses: grafana/plugin-actions/wait-for-grafana@main

      - name: Run Playwright tests
        id: run-tests
        run: npx playwright test

      # Uncomment this step to upload the Playwright report to Github artifacts.
      # If your repository is public, the report will be public on the Internet so beware not to expose sensitive information.
      # - name: Upload artifacts
      #   uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      #   if: ${{ (always() && steps.run-tests.outcome == 'success') || (failure() && steps.run-tests.outcome == 'failure') }}
      #   with:
      #     name: playwright-report-${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.NAME }}-v${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.VERSION }}-${{github.run_id}}
      #     path: playwright-report/
      #     retention-days: 30

Frontend plugin workflow

.github/workflows/e2e.yml
name: E2E tests
on:
  pull_request:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 11 * * *' #Run e2e tests once a day at 11 UTC

permissions:
  contents: read
  id-token: write

jobs:
  resolve-versions:
    name: Resolve Grafana images
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    timeout-minutes: 3
    outputs:
      matrix: ${{ steps.resolve-versions.outputs.matrix }}
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Resolve Grafana E2E versions
        id: resolve-versions
        uses: grafana/plugin-actions/e2e-version@main

  playwright-tests:
    needs: resolve-versions
    timeout-minutes: 60
    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        GRAFANA_IMAGE: ${{fromJson(needs.resolve-versions.outputs.matrix)}}
    name: e2e ${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.name }}@${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.VERSION }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Setup Node.js environment
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version-file: .nvmrc

      - name: Install npm dependencies
        run: npm ci

      - name: Build frontend
        run: npm run build

      - name: Install Playwright Browsers
        run: npx playwright install --with-deps

      - name: Start Grafana
        run: |
          docker compose pull
          GRAFANA_VERSION=${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.VERSION }} GRAFANA_IMAGE=${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.NAME }} docker compose up -d

      - name: Wait for grafana server
        uses: grafana/plugin-actions/wait-for-grafana@main

      - name: Run Playwright tests
        id: run-tests
        run: npx playwright test

      # Uncomment this step to upload the Playwright report to Github artifacts.
      # If your repository is public, the report will be public on the Internet so beware not to expose sensitive information.
      # - name: Upload artifacts
      #   uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
      #   if: ${{ (always() && steps.run-tests.outcome == 'success') || (failure() && steps.run-tests.outcome == 'failure') }}
      #   with:
      #     name: playwright-report-${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.NAME }}-v${{ matrix.GRAFANA_IMAGE.VERSION }}-${{github.run_id}}
      #     path: playwright-report/
      #     retention-days: 30

The e2e-versions Action​

These example workflows have a job called Resolve Grafana images that uses the e2e-version Action to resolve a list of Grafana images. For every image returned, a new job is started that builds the plugin, starts Grafana, and runs the end-to-end tests.

The Action supports two modes:

  • plugin-grafana-dependency
  • version-support-policy.

Use the plugin-grafana-dependency mode​

The plugin-grafana-dependency mode is the default, so if you don't specify a value for the version-resolver-type input parameter, this is the resolver that will be used.

This mode returns the most recent grafana-dev image. Additionally, it returns all the latest patch releases of Grafana Enterprise since the version that was specified as grafanaDependency in the plugin.json. To avoid starting too many jobs, the output is capped at 6 versions.

plugin-grafana-dependency mode
plugin-grafana-dependency mode

Use the version-support-policy mode​

Except for resolving the most recent grafana-dev image, the version-support-policy mode resolves versions according to Grafana's plugin compatibility support policy. Specifically, it retrieves the latest patch release for each minor version within the current major version of Grafana. Additionally, it includes the most recent release for the latest minor version of the previous major Grafana version.

Grafana version support policy
Grafana version support policy

To use the version-support-policy mode, you need to specify the version-resolver-type input argument like in this example:

- name: Resolve Grafana E2E versions
        id: resolve-versions
        uses: grafana/plugin-actions/e2e-version
        with:
          version-resolver-type: version-support-policy

Playwright report​

The end-to-end tooling generates a Playwright HTML test report for every Grafana version that is being tested. In case any of the tests fail, a Playwright trace viewer is also generated along with the report. The Upload artifacts step in the example workflows uploads the report to GitHub as an artifact.

To find information on how to download and view the report, refer to the Playwright documentation.