Playwright CLI

Browser Automation with playwright-cli

Quick start

# open new browser
playwright-cli open
# navigate to a page
playwright-cli goto https://playwright.dev
# interact with the page using refs from the snapshot
playwright-cli click e15
playwright-cli type "page.click"
playwright-cli press Enter
# take a screenshot (rarely used, as snapshot is more common)
playwright-cli screenshot
# close the browser
playwright-cli close

Commands

Core

playwright-cli open
# open and navigate right away
playwright-cli open https://example.com/
playwright-cli goto https://playwright.dev
playwright-cli type "search query"
playwright-cli click e3
playwright-cli dblclick e7
playwright-cli fill e5 "user@example.com"
playwright-cli drag e2 e8
playwright-cli hover e4
playwright-cli select e9 "option-value"
playwright-cli upload ./document.pdf
playwright-cli check e12
playwright-cli uncheck e12
playwright-cli snapshot
playwright-cli snapshot --filename=after-click.yaml
playwright-cli eval "document.title"
playwright-cli eval "el => el.textContent" e5
playwright-cli dialog-accept
playwright-cli dialog-accept "confirmation text"
playwright-cli dialog-dismiss
playwright-cli resize 1920 1080
playwright-cli close

Navigation

playwright-cli go-back
playwright-cli go-forward
playwright-cli reload

Keyboard

playwright-cli press Enter
playwright-cli press ArrowDown
playwright-cli keydown Shift
playwright-cli keyup Shift

Mouse

playwright-cli mousemove 150 300
playwright-cli mousedown
playwright-cli mousedown right
playwright-cli mouseup
playwright-cli mouseup right
playwright-cli mousewheel 0 100

Save as

playwright-cli screenshot
playwright-cli screenshot e5
playwright-cli screenshot --filename=page.png
playwright-cli pdf --filename=page.pdf

Tabs

playwright-cli tab-list
playwright-cli tab-new
playwright-cli tab-new https://example.com/page
playwright-cli tab-close
playwright-cli tab-close 2
playwright-cli tab-select 0

Storage

playwright-cli state-save
playwright-cli state-save auth.json
playwright-cli state-load auth.json

# Cookies
playwright-cli cookie-list
playwright-cli cookie-list --domain=example.com
playwright-cli cookie-get session_id
playwright-cli cookie-set session_id abc123
playwright-cli cookie-set session_id abc123 --domain=example.com --httpOnly --secure
playwright-cli cookie-delete session_id
playwright-cli cookie-clear

# LocalStorage
playwright-cli localstorage-list
playwright-cli localstorage-get theme
playwright-cli localstorage-set theme dark
playwright-cli localstorage-delete theme
playwright-cli localstorage-clear

# SessionStorage
playwright-cli sessionstorage-list
playwright-cli sessionstorage-get step
playwright-cli sessionstorage-set step 3
playwright-cli sessionstorage-delete step
playwright-cli sessionstorage-clear

Network

playwright-cli route "**/*.jpg" --status=404
playwright-cli route "https://api.example.com/**" --body='{"mock": true}'
playwright-cli route-list
playwright-cli unroute "**/*.jpg"
playwright-cli unroute

DevTools

playwright-cli console
playwright-cli console warning
playwright-cli network
playwright-cli run-code "async page => await page.context().grantPermissions(['geolocation'])"
playwright-cli tracing-start
playwright-cli tracing-stop
playwright-cli video-start
playwright-cli video-stop video.webm

Open parameters

# Use specific browser when creating session
playwright-cli open --browser=chrome
playwright-cli open --browser=firefox
playwright-cli open --browser=webkit
playwright-cli open --browser=msedge
# Connect to browser via extension
playwright-cli open --extension

# Use persistent profile (by default profile is in-memory)
playwright-cli open --persistent
# Use persistent profile with custom directory
playwright-cli open --profile=/path/to/profile

# Start with config file
playwright-cli open --config=my-config.json

# Close the browser
playwright-cli close
# Delete user data for the default session
playwright-cli delete-data

Snapshots

After each command, playwright-cli provides a snapshot of the current browser state.

> playwright-cli goto https://example.com
### Page
- Page URL: https://example.com/
- Page Title: Example Domain
### Snapshot
[Snapshot](.playwright-cli/page-2026-02-14T19-22-42-679Z.yml)

You can also take a snapshot on demand using playwright-cli snapshot command.

If --filename is not provided, a new snapshot file is created with a timestamp. Default to automatic file naming, use --filename= when artifact is a part of the workflow result.

Browser Sessions

# create new browser session named "mysession" with persistent profile
playwright-cli -s=mysession open example.com --persistent
# same with manually specified profile directory (use when requested explicitly)
playwright-cli -s=mysession open example.com --profile=/path/to/profile
playwright-cli -s=mysession click e6
playwright-cli -s=mysession close  # stop a named browser
playwright-cli -s=mysession delete-data  # delete user data for persistent session

playwright-cli list
# Close all browsers
playwright-cli close-all
# Forcefully kill all browser processes
playwright-cli kill-all

Local installation

In some cases user might want to install playwright-cli locally. If running globally available playwright-cli binary fails, use npx playwright-cli to run the commands. For example:

npx playwright-cli open https://example.com
npx playwright-cli click e1

Example: Form submission

playwright-cli open https://example.com/form
playwright-cli snapshot

playwright-cli fill e1 "user@example.com"
playwright-cli fill e2 "password123"
playwright-cli click e3
playwright-cli snapshot
playwright-cli close

Example: Multi-tab workflow

playwright-cli open https://example.com
playwright-cli tab-new https://example.com/other
playwright-cli tab-list
playwright-cli tab-select 0
playwright-cli snapshot
playwright-cli close

Example: Debugging with DevTools

playwright-cli open https://example.com
playwright-cli click e4
playwright-cli fill e7 "test"
playwright-cli console
playwright-cli network
playwright-cli close

playwright-cli open https://example.com
playwright-cli tracing-start
playwright-cli click e4
playwright-cli fill e7 "test"
playwright-cli tracing-stop
playwright-cli close

Connecting to the Electron App (Keybase)

The Electron app must be running with remote debugging enabled:

cd shared && KB_ENABLE_REMOTE_DEBUG=1 yarn desktop:start:hot

Connecting

# The --persistent flag is required — it disables isolated mode, which Electron doesn't support
PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_CDP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:9222 playwright-cli open --persistent

Tab layout

Tab order is NOT stable. It changes when the app restarts, and a DevTools window can take slot 0:

• Seen: 0: menubar, 1: main app
• Also seen (after an app restart with DevTools open): 0: DevTools, 1: main app, 2: menubar

Identifying the main app tab — do this EVERY time

Never reuse a remembered index. Re-run tab-list and pick the row whose URL contains main.html after every restart, reload, or reconnect, then confirm with one cheap eval before trusting anything:

playwright-cli tab-list                 # find the row whose URL has main.html
playwright-cli tab-select <that index>
playwright-cli eval "document.title + ' ' + location.href"   # assert before proceeding

A wrong tab fails silently. DevTools is a real page: it answers every eval plausibly and its console is nearly empty, so readings look like findings rather than mistakes. Treat a suspiciously empty console or a tiny document.body.innerText as "wrong tab" first, not as evidence.

Also note console only captures output from the moment playwright attached to that page. Anything logged before the attach lives in the user's own DevTools and cannot be retrieved through playwright — ask them to paste it, or have them re-trigger while you are attached.

Use the page URL, not the title — the title stays "Keybase DEV" until the router navigates and can't be relied on:

• Main app: URL contains main.html
• Menubar: URL contains remote.html?component=menubar (the menubar is a remote window, not its own shell)
• Avoid: devtools:// pages and the "Keybase DEV" standalone DevTools window

// Find the main app page by URL
let mainPage
for (const ctx of browser.contexts()) {
  for (const p of ctx.pages()) {
    if (p.url().includes('main.html')) { mainPage = p; break }
  }
  if (mainPage) break
}

Quirk: snapshot vs eval

snapshot always captures the first CDP page (usually the menubar), regardless of which tab is "current". Use eval instead — it correctly targets the selected tab.

playwright-cli tab-select 1          # select main app tab
playwright-cli eval "document.title"  # works correctly ✅
playwright-cli snapshot               # captures menubar instead ❌

DOM inspection with eval

Use eval with simple JS expressions (not multi-line functions — they fail serialization):

# find element and get surrounding HTML
playwright-cli eval "document.body.innerHTML.indexOf('some text')"
playwright-cli eval "document.body.innerHTML.substring(111424, 112200)"

# check if element exists
playwright-cli eval "document.body.innerHTML.includes('cnn.com')"

# get computed styles
playwright-cli eval "getComputedStyle(document.querySelector('.my-class')).position"

Why --persistent is required

Electron's CDP endpoint doesn't support Target.createBrowserContext. By default playwright-cli runs in isolated mode which calls browser.newContext() — this fails with:

Protocol error (Target.createBrowserContext): Failed to create browser context.

--persistent sets isolated: false, so playwright-cli uses the existing browser.contexts()[0] instead.

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