playwright-cli

Browser Automation with playwright-cli

Use this skill for ad-hoc browser navigation, inspection, and interaction using CLI snapshots. When a local application needs managed server startup, custom Python assertions, or a repeatable Python test script, use $webapp-testing.

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

See references/commands.md for the complete catalogue of all commands organized by category: Core, Navigation, Keyboard, Mouse, Save as, Tabs, Storage (Cookies/LocalStorage/SessionStorage), Network, DevTools, Open Parameters, Browser Sessions, and Raw Output Mode.

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. All the options below can be combined as needed.

# default - save to a file with timestamp-based name
playwright-cli snapshot

# save to file, use when snapshot is a part of the workflow result
playwright-cli snapshot --filename=after-click.yaml

# snapshot an element instead of the whole page
playwright-cli snapshot "#main"

# limit snapshot depth for efficiency, take a partial snapshot afterwards
playwright-cli snapshot --depth=4
playwright-cli snapshot e34

Targeting elements

By default, use refs from the snapshot to interact with page elements.

# get snapshot with refs
playwright-cli snapshot

# interact using a ref
playwright-cli click e15