I spent many hours trying to solve this issue. I’m not that skilled with CI/CD so I’m looking for some help. AI was also not helpful.

What I need from the workflow:

• Run playwright test
• Use sharding ( https://playwright.dev/docs/test-sharding )
• Have Neo4j service
• Load initial data into Neo4j database
• Use container mcr.microsoft.com/playwright:v1.44.0-jammy

What are the problems I hit on the road:

• To load data into Neo4j I’ve set custom name for service with options. Afterwards I can have step which runs docker exec and load required dataset and import it with cypher-shell tool. But with custom name of service I can’t connect to this database from my tool I’m testing. I don’t know why. I tried neo4j and also neo4j_service. You can see that with env variable DB_HOSTNAME.
• Other option was to download cypher-shell separately and don’t use the one from service. I couldn’t deal with getting the latest version. So it would require to update workflow file everytime there is a new version.
• When I used workflow strategy matrix to use sharding I have problem with loading dataset into Neo4j, because it does it multiple times. Because it is a step. I tried to condition that step but somehow it didn’t work. Maybe it was just related to problem with custom service name.
• When I used workflow container for playwright, for running my playwright tests, which is suggested, I have problem because it doesn’t contain docker to run cypher-shell from the service.
• I was thinking, maybe dockerfile to create neo4j instance with data will be the way. But I’m not sure if I have dockerfile in repository, if I can use it as service in workflow.

This is currently state of my yaml file:

name: Playwright e2e tests

on:
  pull_request:
    branches: [master]
  workflow_run:
    workflows: ['Prettier and linter']
    types:
      - completed

concurrency:
  group: ${{ github.head_ref }}
  cancel-in-progress: true

jobs:
  neo4j-read:
    timeout-minutes: 60
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    #    container:
    #      image: mcr.microsoft.com/playwright:v1.44.0-jammy
    services:
      neo4j:
        image: neo4j:latest
        env:
          NEO4J_AUTH: neo4j/nothing123
        ports:
          - 7687:7687
          - 7474:7474
        options: >-
          --name "neo4j_service"
          --health-cmd "wget http://localhost:7474 || exit 1"
    #    strategy:
    #      fail-fast: false
    #      matrix:
    #        shardIndex: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
    #        shardTotal: [8]

    steps:
      - name: Load movies dataset
        #        if: ${{ matrix.shardIndex == 1 }}
        run: |
          docker exec neo4j_service wget -O /tmp/movies.cypher https://raw.githubusercontent.com/neo4j-graph-examples/movies/main/scripts/movies.cypher
          docker exec neo4j_service cypher-shell -a bolt://localhost:7687 -u "neo4j" -p "nothing123" "MATCH (n) DETACH DELETE n"
          docker exec neo4j_service cypher-shell -a bolt://localhost:7687 -u "neo4j" -p "nothing123" -f /tmp/movies.cypher

      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Setup node
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: latest
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci
      #      - name: Playwright
      #        run: |
      #          npx playwright install --with-deps chromium
      #          npx playwright test --grep @neo4j-read --shard=${{ matrix.shardIndex }}/${{ matrix.shardTotal }} --reporter=blob
      - name: Install Playwright Browsers
        run: npx playwright install --with-deps chromium
      - name: Run Playwright tests (neo4j-read)
        run: npx playwright test --grep @neo4j-read --reporter=html #--reporter=blob --shard=${{ matrix.shardIndex }}/${{ matrix.shardTotal }}
        env:
          DB_HOSTNAME: 'bolt://neo4j:7687'
          DB_USERNAME: 'neo4j'
          DB_PASSWORD: 'nothing123'
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        if: ${{ failure() }}
        with:
          name: playwright-report
          path: playwright-report/
          retention-days: 1
  #      - name: Upload blob report to GitHub Actions Artifacts
  #        if: ${{ failure() }}
  #        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
  #        with:
  #          name: blob-report-${{ matrix.shardIndex }}
  #          path: blob-report
  #          retention-days: 1

You can check more here: https://github.com/stefanak-michal/cyphergui/pull/88