Playwriter Skill

Control_your_Chrome_browser_via_Playwriter_extension.md

Playwriter Skill

Control your own Chrome browser via the Playwriter extension using Playwright code snippets in a stateful local JavaScript sandbox.

Unlike Playwright which launches a new browser instance, Playwriter connects to your existing Chrome browser, preserving your login sessions, cookies, and extensions. Best for JS-heavy websites (Instagram, Twitter, cookie/login walls, lazy-loaded UIs) where webfetch/curl would fail.

First-use setup (required)

Before running any Playwriter commands, you MUST perform the following checks in order. Do NOT skip this section.

Step A: Check if Playwriter CLI is available

command -v playwriter >/dev/null 2>&1 || npx playwriter@latest --version

Step B: If CLI is not available, guide the user through installation

If the check above fails, pause and walk the user through these steps:

Install the Chrome extension (required, one-time):

Open: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/playwriter-mcp/jfeammnjpkecdekppnclgkkffahnhfhe

Click "Add to Chrome" and confirm

After installation, click the Playwriter extension icon on any tab you want to control (the icon turns green when connected)

CLI installation is NOT required — use npx to run without global install:

npx playwriter@latest
# or
bunx playwriter@latest

Step C: Read full documentation (required)

After setup is confirmed, you MUST run this command to get the complete Playwriter documentation:

playwriter skill

This outputs session management rules, selector strategies, timeout configuration, SPA best practices, context variables, and utility functions. Do NOT proceed without reading this output first — the examples below will fail without this knowledge.

Quick start

Create a new session

playwriter session new

# Run a command in session 1
playwriter -s 1 -e "await page.goto('https://example.com')"

When to use Playwriter

JavaScript-heavy websites (Instagram, Twitter, etc.)

Sites with cookie walls or login walls

Lazy-loaded UIs that require real browser rendering

Tasks that need the user's existing login sessions and cookies

Complex multi-step browser automation with stateful sessions