Use Fairlead Recorder to capture browser test execution and preserve evidence of what happened. A session can support a bug report, a record that no issue was observed within the tested scope, or evidence attached to a test run in your test-management system (TMS). These guides cover preparation, recording, review, results, and reuse.

Choose a path

• QA engineers: Choose a testing workflow, record a test session, then report results and share evidence.
• Developers: Open the developer documentation for diagnosis, backend correlation, test generation, and format reference.
• Teams using Fairlead projects: Connect your project for configured issue destinations and stored sessions.

Capture begins after Start and follows the retained-timeline and session limits. Downloads save evidence files in a folder. Inspect console output and screenshot pixels before sharing; automatic redaction does not cover everything.

Get started

• Install and open Recorder. Add Recorder to Chrome, pin it to the toolbar, and open the side panel.
• Recorder overview. Tour the side panel, recording controls, and viewer sections, with their purpose, available actions, and key limits.
• Keyboard shortcuts. Control recording setup, move through Viewer evidence, and edit a session from the keyboard.
• Record your first test. Define the check and expected result, Start, execute, Stop promptly, review evidence, and record the observed outcome.
• Local recording and connected projects. Account-free capabilities, signing in, project prerequisites, available destinations, and session provenance.
• What Recorder captures. Actions, requests, console, screenshots, environment, lifecycle and performance evidence, with capture limits.

Testing workflows

These are recommended blueprints you can adapt to your team’s process. Each explains the Recorder controls, evidence checks, and handoff for the task. Start with Choose a workflow for shared setup, capture, and download details, or open the job you need to complete:

• Execute a test case. Capture expected-result checks, annotate the deciding evidence, and save the attempt for its case/run.
• Reproduce a reported bug. Capture a numbered attempt and add its result to the existing issue.
• Report a bug from recorded evidence. Find the failing action, annotate requests and screenshots, and assemble the issue without repeating a useful recording.
• Verify a fix. Compare the original failing evidence with a fresh attempt on the candidate build.

For particular checks or recording patterns:

• Capture an exploratory discovery. Stop at a useful observation, search its evidence, and save it before the next variation.
• Record a smoke or regression batch. Name, review, and download each case or checkpoint before continuing.
• Capture accessibility test evidence. Keep keyboard events visible and annotate focus or assistive-technology observations.
• Investigate slow or unresponsive behavior. Preserve the initiating action and inspect request timings, errors, and the waiting state.

Record a test session

• Start, stop, and reset. Side panel and in-page controls, pending starts, the retained timeline, and resetting local evidence.
• Navigation, tabs, and frames. SPA navigation, newly opened tabs, domain boundaries, iframe provenance, and Shadow DOM limits.
• Screenshots and attachments. Visible viewport and area capture, clipboard and file images, inclusion controls, and unmasked pixels.

Inspect a session

• Open the session viewer. Open a stopped local session, move between evidence views, return to the application, and understand snapshot/reset behavior.
• Recorded actions and user steps. Individual recorded actions, event detail, selectors and labels, related evidence, and generated user steps.
• Network requests and responses. Search and filter requests; inspect headers, query parameters, bodies, timing, initiators, cookies, and missing or truncated content.
• Console and browser errors. Filter levels and sources, inspect exceptions and stack traces, and align errors with the retained timeline.
• Add notes to evidence. Annotate actions, requests, fields and console entries; mark important notes; edit, delete, and follow source evidence.
• Environment and performance evidence. Browser/page context, lifecycle events, long tasks and timing evidence, and limits of recorded diagnostics.

Report results and share evidence

• Record test outcomes. Record pass, fail, blocked, or inconclusive results against stated checks; document no issue observed within a specific scope; include gaps and unexecuted steps.
• Attach execution evidence to a TMS. Associate reviewed artifacts with the correct case, run, build, environment, tester, and execution time; record the result in the TMS and verify attachments are accessible.

Recorder supplies evidence for a tester to assess. A clean console or the absence of a captured error does not establish that a test passed. TMS guidance covers manual attachment or approved links where supported by your tools; it does not assume automatic result synchronization.

Connect your project

• Sign in and select a project. Control Plane authentication, assigned project profiles, session expiry, and where administrators manage configuration.
• Understand capture rules. Domains, network scope, payload limits, excluded selectors, trusted iframe values, and project-sensitive-key lists.
• Create or update an issue. Choose a configured tracker, find/create/update an issue, connect credentials in Control Plane, and resolve description conflicts.
• Upload a session and enhance the report. Data Plane destinations, explicit enhancement, storage-disabled projects, and independent issue/attachment/upload outcomes.
• Open a stored session. Open from Control Plane, authorization expiry, and current read-only, attachment, and test-generation limitations.

Privacy and permissions

• Review data before sharing. Inspect privacy evidence, console, images, notes and payloads; use supported manual redaction and distinguish display choices from export decisions.
• How redaction works. Capture-time and assembly-time sanitization; partial header masking; cookie values; project rules replacing defaults; XML/free-text gaps.
• Browser permissions. Understand browser debugging access, site scope, file access, and restricted pages.
• Storage and data destinations. Local session storage and attachments, downloads, reset, Bridge commands, Data Plane reports, and what disabling storage does.

Troubleshooting

• Recording and missing evidence. Restricted pages, start failures, debugger attachment, off-domain traffic, iframe values, unavailable bodies, and evidence outside the retained window.
• Downloads and generated tests. Failed or partial downloads, missing optional files, redacted values, unsupported actions, selectors, and test preconditions.
• Sign-in, uploads, and issue submission. No assigned profile, expired auth, missing credentials/destination, protocol mismatch, unknown timeout outcome, and partial success.

Downloads

• Download session artifacts. Local artifact files, screenshot attachments, session and notes Markdown, and partial-download recovery.

See Developers for technical reference and generated test scripts. The Markdown version is available for this guide.