playwright-cli

Use playwright-cli to open a page, take a snapshot of the accessibility tree, then click, fill, and type using element refs from that snapshot. Each command prints the equivalent Playwright TypeScript code you can reuse in tests.

Run the test with npx playwright test --debug=cli in the background, wait for the debugging instructions with a session name, then attach with playwright-cli attach. Step to the failing point and inspect the page with snapshot, console, and requests.

Yes, the route command intercepts URL patterns and returns custom status codes, JSON bodies, or headers. For conditional logic or response modification, use run-code with page.route to inspect requests and fulfill them dynamically.

Yes, the -s flag creates named sessions with independent cookies, storage, cache, and tabs. You can list sessions, attach to running Chrome or Edge instances via CDP, and clean up with close-all or kill-all.

The video-start and video-stop commands can report success without writing a file, so verify the file exists before relying on it. For recordings you intend to share, use run-code with page.screencast, which writes the file itself.

Use tracing when debugging, since traces capture DOM snapshots, network activity, console logs, and per-action timing for step-by-step replay. Video suits demos and documentation, while screenshots are best for quick single-frame captures.