playwright-cli

name	playwright-cli
description	Runs repeatable browser flows with playwright-cli. Use when a task needs navigation, form entry, snapshots, debugging, or artifact capture in a real browser.

Browser automation with playwright-cli

Use this skill for the workflow and decision points, not as a command encyclopedia. Prefer snapshots over screenshots for interaction, keep sessions short-lived unless persistence is required, and store artifacts only when the task asks for them.

Usage

Reach for this skill when real browser state matters and command-line HTTP calls or static HTML inspection are not enough.

When to use

Situation	Primary commands
Start or resume a browser flow	open, goto, snapshot, close
Interact with page elements	click, fill, type, select, press
Inspect state	snapshot, eval, console, network
Capture artifacts	screenshot, pdf, tracing-start, tracing-stop
Manage state or tabs	state-save, state-load, tab-*, storage commands

Workflow

1. Open a session and navigate to the target URL.
2. Take or inspect a snapshot to get stable element refs.
3. Interact with the page using those refs.
4. Re-snapshot after meaningful state changes.
5. Capture screenshots, PDFs, traces, or video only when the task needs artifacts.
6. Close the session and clean up persistent data if it was created just for the task.

Guardrails

• Prefer snapshot for navigation and verification; screenshots are for deliverables.
• Use named sessions only when the flow spans multiple steps or needs persisted auth/state.
• Mock routes, tracing, and storage commands are opt-in; do not enable them without a task reason.
• If the global binary is missing, fall back to npx playwright-cli ....

Examples

Basic interaction loop

playwright-cli open https://example.com
playwright-cli snapshot
playwright-cli click e3
playwright-cli fill e5 "[e-mail]"
playwright-cli snapshot
playwright-cli close

Capture a trace for debugging

playwright-cli open https://example.com
playwright-cli tracing-start
playwright-cli snapshot
playwright-cli tracing-stop
playwright-cli close

Specific tasks

• Request mocking references/request-mocking.md
• Running Playwright code references/running-code.md
• Browser session management references/session-management.md
• Storage state (cookies, localStorage) references/storage-state.md
• Test generation references/test-generation.md
• Tracing references/tracing.md
• Video recording references/video-recording.md