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

Snapshot

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

playwright-cli

Safety Notice

Copy this and send it to your AI assistant to learn