Browser Automation with playwright-cli

Comprehensive CLI-driven browser automation, navigate, interact, mock, debug, record, and generate tests without writing a single script file.

Quick Start

# Install and set up
playwright-cli install --skills
playwright-cli install-browser

# Open a browser and navigate
playwright-cli open https://playwright.dev

# Take a snapshot to see interactive elements (refs like e1, e2, e3...)
playwright-cli snapshot

# Interact using element refs from the snapshot
playwright-cli click e15
playwright-cli fill e5 "search query"
playwright-cli press Enter

# Take a screenshot
playwright-cli screenshot

# Close the browser
playwright-cli close

Golden Rules

1. Always snapshot first, identify element refs before interacting; never guess ref numbers
2. Use fill for inputs, click for buttons, type sends keystrokes one-by-one, fill replaces the entire value
3. Named sessions for parallel work, -s=name isolates cookies, storage, and tabs per session
4. Save auth state, state-save auth.json after login, state-load auth.json to skip login next time
5. Trace before debugging, tracing-start before the failing step, not after
6. run-code for advanced scenarios, when CLI commands aren't enough, drop into full Playwright API
7. Clean up sessions, close or close-all when done; kill-all for zombie processes
8. Descriptive filenames, screenshot --filename=checkout-step3.png not screenshot
9. Mock external APIs only, use route to intercept third-party services, not your own app
10. Persistent profiles for stateful flows, --persistent keeps cookies and storage across restarts

Command Reference

Core Interaction