Qaskills Playwright CLI Automation

CLI-first browser automation using Playwright CLI for navigation, form filling, snapshots, screenshots, data extraction, and UI-flow debugging from the terminal.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/PramodDutta/qaskills

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/PramodDutta/qaskills "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/seed-skills/playwright-cli-automation" ~/.claude/skills/pramoddutta-qaskills-playwright-cli-automation && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: seed-skills/playwright-cli-automation/SKILL.md

Playwright CLI Automation

Drive a real browser from the terminal using

playwright-cli

. Prefer the bundled wrapper script so the CLI works even when it is not globally installed. Treat this skill as CLI-first automation. Do not pivot to

@playwright/test

unless the user explicitly asks for test files.

Prerequisite check (required)

Before proposing commands, check whether

npx

is available (the wrapper depends on it):

command -v npx >/dev/null 2>&1

If it is not available, pause and ask the user to install Node.js/npm (which provides

npx

). Provide these steps verbatim:

# Verify Node/npm are installed
node --version
npm --version

# If missing, install Node.js/npm, then:
npm install -g @playwright/cli@latest
playwright-cli --help

Once

npx

is present, proceed with the wrapper script. A global install of

playwright-cli

is optional.

Core workflow

Open the page.
Snapshot to get stable element refs.
Interact using refs from the latest snapshot.
Re-snapshot after navigation or significant DOM changes.
Capture artifacts (screenshot, pdf, traces) when useful.

Minimal loop:

playwright-cli open https://example.com
playwright-cli snapshot
playwright-cli click e3
playwright-cli snapshot

When to snapshot again

Snapshot again after:

navigation
clicking elements that change the UI substantially
opening/closing modals or menus
tab switches

Refs can go stale. When a command fails due to a missing ref, snapshot again.

Recommended patterns

Form fill and submit

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

Debug a UI flow with traces

playwright-cli open https://example.com --headed
playwright-cli tracing-start
# ...interactions...
playwright-cli tracing-stop

Multi-tab work

playwright-cli tab-new https://example.com
playwright-cli tab-list
playwright-cli tab-select 0
playwright-cli snapshot

Guardrails

Always snapshot before referencing element ids like
```
e12
```
.
Re-snapshot when refs seem stale.
Prefer explicit commands over
```
eval
```
and
```
run-code
```
unless needed.
Use
```
--headed
```
when a visual check will help.
Default to CLI commands and workflows, not Playwright test specs.