playwriter

What it is

Chrome extension & CLI to let agents control your browser. Runs Playwright snippets in a stateful sandbox. Available as CLI or MCP.

How it works

Connects to your running Chrome with an extension, exposes a Playwright API via a local server and remote access, supports MCP clients, and provides session-based isolated state with shared browser tabs.

Getting started

Install Extension from Chrome Web Store, then install the CLI and run commands:

npm i -g playwriter
playwriter -s 1 -e 'await page.goto("https://example.com")'

Install the skill:

npx -y skills add remorses/playwriter

CLI usage examples include starting a browser, creating a session, and executing scripts:

playwriter browser start
playwriter session new
playwriter -s 1 -e 'await page.goto("https://example.com")'

Recent releases

• playwriter@0.4.0 (2026-06-25): Cloud browser sessions via Browser Use — spin up stealth Chromium VMs in the cloud with playwriter session new --browser cloud. Supports residential proxies (--proxy us, --proxy de).
• extension@0.0.97 (2026-06-25): 10s timeout for CDP init commands — avoids blocking the Playwright connection setup when tabs are frozen or hibernated.
• playwriter@0.3.1 (2026-06-13): Auto-page creation enabled by default — MCP and CLI sessions create a blank Playwriter-enabled tab when no targets are available.
• playwriter@0.3.0 (2026-06-13): New sinceLastCall option for getLatestLogs() to inspect browser logs after actions without duplicates.
• extension@0.0.94 (2026-05-27): Copy React Component Source Path via right-click menu.

Traction

3743 stars, 166 forks, 25 open issues as of the data provided.

Behind the repo

Remorses is the organizational author; project provides a Chrome extension and CLI that integrate with Playwright via MCP and local WebSocket/CDP relay.

Caveats

License: MIT. Created 2025-11-13; last push 2026-07-27. HTML language in repo. Known issues include debugging notes and remote access setup details in docs.