init

The user wants to initialize Playwright E2E testing in the current project.

Preflight (read before doing anything)

1. Run pwd — confirm you are in the project the user wants to set up. If this is the guild repo itself (cwd ends in guild), STOP and ask the user which app to set up — this plugin is not meant to test itself.
2. Check for package.json at the cwd root. If missing, ask whether to npm init -y or whether they want a different workspace root.
3. Check for existing playwright.config.ts / playwright.config.js. If present, STOP and ask: append-to-existing, or abort? Never overwrite without explicit ack.
4. Check for existing .mcp.json. If present and already has a playwright server entry, skip the MCP step — don't clobber their config.

Steps

1. Install Playwright

npm install --save-dev @playwright/test
npx playwright install

Both must succeed. playwright install downloads Chromium/Firefox/WebKit — it's a multi-hundred-MB step; tell the user it may take a minute.

2. Write playwright.config.ts

Use this generic template — works for any framework. Do NOT bake in Next.js/Vite assumptions unless the user has confirmed the stack.

import { defineConfig, devices } from '@playwright/test';

export default defineConfig({
  testDir: './tests',
  fullyParallel: true,
  forbidOnly: !!process.env.CI,
  retries: process.env.CI ? 2 : 0,
  workers: process.env.CI ? 1 : undefined,
  reporter: [['html', { open: 'never' }], ['list']],
  use: {
    baseURL: process.env.BASE_URL ?? 'http://localhost:3000',
    trace: 'on-first-retry',
    screenshot: 'only-on-failure',
    video: 'retain-on-failure',
  },
  projects: [
    { name: 'chromium', use: { ...devices['Desktop Chrome'] } },
  ],
});

Single browser project by default — add Firefox/WebKit only when the user asks. Multi-browser is a 3x cost multiplier for diminishing return.

3. Register Playwright MCP

If .mcp.json does not exist, create it with:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "playwright": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@playwright/mcp@latest", "--caps", "vision,devtools"]
    }
  }
}