Browser Automation with playwright-cli

CRITICAL: When to Use This Tool

Use Playwright CLI when the target site has NO bot/human detection. Use cc-browser when the target site HAS bot detection.

Decision Rule

Does the site detect bots or automation?
  |
  +-- NO  --> Use Playwright CLI (this tool)
  |           Your dev server, public docs, internal tools, static sites,
  |           demo sites, staging environments, any site without anti-bot
  |
  +-- YES --> Use cc-browser
  |           LinkedIn, Reddit, Spotify, banking sites, Cloudflare-protected,
  |           DataDome, PerimeterX, CAPTCHA-gated sites
  |
  +-- NOT SURE --> Try Playwright CLI first.
                   If you get blocked/CAPTCHAs/empty responses, switch to cc-browser.

Why Playwright CLI Over cc-browser

Playwright CLI saves the accessibility tree to disk and only sends a summary to the LLM. This is 90,000+ tokens cheaper than Playwright MCP for the same task.

Why cc-browser Still Exists

cc-browser uses real Chrome/Edge profiles with human-like delays to defeat bot detection. Playwright CLI's bundled Chromium is trivially detectable by anti-bot systems -- its browser fingerprint, WebDriver flags, and automation markers will get you blocked immediately.

Full decision guide: tools/cc-browser/docs/PLAYWRIGHT-CLI-VS-CC-BROWSER.md

Running Commands

If playwright-cli is not on PATH, use npx playwright-cli instead.

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

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