@e2e-dev/web 0.15.2 automatically captures a trace screen after app.open() finishes navigation. On a server-rendered React page, this can precede hydration. capturePixels() passes caret: 'hide' to Playwright, which temporarily changes input and textarea inline styles. React then reports a hydration mismatch even though the application rendered matching HTML.

Reproduction:

1. Enable trace: 'on' with the web engine and navigate from a loaded page to an SSR React form using app.open().
2. Attach console/page-error listeners before navigation. Hydration must still be pending when the automatic trace screenshot starts; a scenario's subsequent hydration wait cannot prevent that capture.
3. Observe the warning below. The same navigation without the automatic capture does not warn.

Sanitized trace:

PlaywrightSurface.open -> acted -> TraceFeed.screenAfterAction
  -> captureObservation -> capturePixels
  -> page.screenshot({ animations: 'disabled', caret: 'hide', ... })

A tree hydrated but some attributes of the server rendered HTML didn't match the client properties.
  <Input>
    <input id="instrument-wizard-basics-name" ...>
-     style={{caret-color:"transparent"}}
  <Textarea>
    <textarea id="instrument-wizard-basics-description" ...>
-     style={{caret-color:"transparent"}}

Suggested fix: use caret: 'initial' with Playwright's temporary screenshot stylesheet (style: '* { caret-color: transparent !important; }'). This keeps carets out of captured pixels without editing React-owned form attributes. Secure-field masks and trace capture remain enabled. Alternatively, expose a supported pre-capture readiness hook.

Our browser fixture asserts that the navigation emits no console or page errors; the original package fails that assertion. With the stylesheet change, the same fixture and its session setup passed (2 tests, 19 seconds, zero console/page errors), with tracing and secure-field masks still enabled.