browser-automation

name	browser-automation
description	Non-testing browser automation - web scraping, form filling, screenshot capture, PDF generation, workflow automation. For TESTING with Playwright, use e2e-playwright skill instead. Activates for web scraping, form automation, screenshot, PDF, headless browser, Puppeteer, Selenium, automation scripts, data extraction.

Browser Automation Skill

Expert in browser automation using Playwright, Puppeteer, and Selenium. Specializes in UI testing, web scraping, form automation, and automated workflows.

Expertise Areas

1. Playwright Automation

• Browser Control: Launch, navigate, interact with pages
• Element Selection: CSS selectors, XPath, text-based, data-testid
• Actions: Click, fill, select, hover, drag-and-drop
• Waiting Strategies: waitForSelector, waitForNavigation, waitForTimeout
• Network Interception: Mock APIs, block resources, modify requests
• Screenshots & Videos: Full page, element-specific, video recording

2. Testing Frameworks

• End-to-End Testing: Playwright Test, Cypress-like workflows
• Visual Regression: Screenshot comparison, pixel diff analysis
• Accessibility Testing: ARIA validation, keyboard navigation
• Performance Testing: Page load times, Core Web Vitals
• Mobile Testing: Emulate devices, touch gestures

3. Web Scraping

• Data Extraction: Parse HTML, extract structured data
• Pagination: Navigate through multi-page results
• Dynamic Content: Handle lazy loading, infinite scroll
• Authentication: Login flows, session management
• Rate Limiting: Throttle requests, respect robots.txt

4. Form Automation

• Input Fields: Text, email, password, number inputs
• Selections: Dropdowns, radio buttons, checkboxes
• File Uploads: Single and multiple file uploads
• Date Pickers: Custom date widgets
• Multi-Step Forms: Wizard-style form flows

Code Examples

Basic Page Navigation

import { chromium } from 'playwright';

const browser = await chromium.launch({ headless: true });
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('https://example.com', { waitUntil: 'networkidle' });
await page.screenshot({ path: 'screenshot.png', fullPage: true });
await browser.close();

Form Automation with Validation

// Fill and submit form
await page.fill('input[name="email"]', '[e-mail]');
await page.fill('input[name="password"]', 'SecurePass123!');
await page.click('button[type="submit"]');

// Wait for success message
const success = await page.waitForSelector('.success-message', { timeout: 5000 });
const message = await success.textContent();
console.log('Success:', message);

Data Extraction from Multiple Pages

const products = [];
let page = 1;

while (page <= 10) {
  await browser.goto(`https://example.com/products?page=${page}`);

  const items = await browser.$$eval('.product-item', (elements) =>
    elements.map((el) => ({
      title: el.querySelector('.title')?.textContent,
      price: el.querySelector('.price')?.textContent,
      image: el.querySelector('img')?.src,
    }))
  );

  products.push(...items);
  page++;
}

Network Interception

await page.route('**/api/analytics', (route) => route.abort());
await page.route('**/api/user', (route) =>
  route.fulfill({
    status: 200,
    body: JSON.stringify({ id: 1, name: 'Test User' }),
  })
);

Visual Regression Testing

import { expect } from '@playwright/test';

// Capture baseline
await page.screenshot({ path: 'baseline.png' });

// After changes, compare
const screenshot = await page.screenshot();
expect(screenshot).toMatchSnapshot('homepage.png');

Selector Strategies

1. CSS Selectors (Preferred)

// ID selector (most reliable)
await page.click('#submit-button');

// Data attribute (best practice)
await page.click('[data-testid="login-button"]');

// Class selector
await page.click('.btn-primary');

// Combined selector
await page.click('button.submit[type="submit"]');

2. XPath (When CSS isn't enough)

// Text-based selection
await page.click('//button[contains(text(), "Submit")]');

// Complex hierarchy
await page.click('//div[@class="form"]//input[@name="email"]');

3. Playwright-Specific

// Text-based
await page.getByText('Submit').click();

// Role-based (accessibility)
await page.getByRole('button', { name: 'Submit' }).click();

// Label-based
await page.getByLabel('Email address').fill('[e-mail]');

// Placeholder-based
await page.getByPlaceholder('Enter your email').fill('[e-mail]');

Best Practices

1. Use Stable Selectors

❌ Bad: .css-4j6h2k-button (auto-generated class) ✅ Good: [data-testid="submit-button"]

2. Add Explicit Waits

❌ Bad: await page.waitForTimeout(3000); ✅ Good: await page.waitForSelector('.results', { state: 'visible' });

3. Handle Errors Gracefully

try {
  await page.click('button', { timeout: 5000 });
} catch (error) {
  await page.screenshot({ path: 'error.png' });
  console.error('Click failed:', error.message);
  throw error;
}

4. Clean Up Resources

try {
  // automation code
} finally {
  await browser.close();
}

5. Use Page Object Model (POM)

class LoginPage {
  constructor(private page: Page) {}

  async login(email: string, password: string) {
    await this.page.fill('[data-testid="email"]', email);
    await this.page.fill('[data-testid="password"]', password);
    await this.page.click('[data-testid="submit"]');
  }

  async isLoggedIn() {
    return this.page.locator('[data-testid="dashboard"]').isVisible();
  }
}

Common Pitfalls

1. Race Conditions

// ❌ Race condition
await page.click('button');
const text = await page.textContent('.result'); // May fail!

// ✅ Wait for element
await page.click('button');
await page.waitForSelector('.result');
const text = await page.textContent('.result');

2. Stale Element References

// ❌ Element may become stale
const element = await page.$('button');
await page.reload();
await element.click(); // Error: element detached from DOM

// ✅ Re-query after page changes
await page.reload();
await page.click('button');

3. Timing Issues with Dynamic Content

// ❌ Assumes immediate load
await page.goto('https://example.com');
await page.click('.dynamic-content'); // May fail!

// ✅ Wait for dynamic content
await page.goto('https://example.com');
await page.waitForLoadState('networkidle');
await page.click('.dynamic-content');

Debugging Tools

1. Headful Mode

const browser = await chromium.launch({ headless: false, slowMo: 100 });

2. Screenshot on Failure

test.afterEach(async ({ page }, testInfo) => {
  if (testInfo.status !== 'passed') {
    await page.screenshot({ path: `failure-${testInfo.title}.png` });
  }
});

3. Trace Recording

await context.tracing.start({ screenshots: true, snapshots: true });
await page.goto('https://example.com');
// ... automation steps
await context.tracing.stop({ path: 'trace.zip' });

4. Console Logs

page.on('console', (msg) => console.log('Browser log:', msg.text()));

Performance Optimization

1. Block Unnecessary Resources

await page.route('**/*.{png,jpg,jpeg,gif,svg,css}', (route) => route.abort());

2. Reuse Browser Contexts

const context = await browser.newContext();
const page1 = await context.newPage();
const page2 = await context.newPage();
// Share cookies, storage, etc.

3. Parallel Execution

await Promise.all([
  page1.goto('https://example.com/page1'),
  page2.goto('https://example.com/page2'),
  page3.goto('https://example.com/page3'),
]);

Activation Keywords

Ask me about:

• "How do I automate browser testing with Playwright?"
• "Web scraping with Playwright/Puppeteer"
• "Screenshot automation and visual regression"
• "Form filling automation"
• "Element selection strategies"
• "Handling dynamic content in web automation"
• "Best practices for UI testing"
• "Debugging Playwright tests"

Related Skills

• E2E Testing: e2e-playwright skill
• Frontend Development: frontend skill for understanding DOM structure
• API Testing: api-testing skill for mocking network requests

Tools & Frameworks

• Playwright: Modern browser automation (recommended)
• Puppeteer: Chrome/Chromium-specific automation
• Selenium: Legacy cross-browser automation
• Playwright Test: Full testing framework
• Cypress: Alternative E2E testing framework