Browser Automation with playwright-cli

Use playwright-cli to inspect a live page and discover the real flow, stable selectors, and cookie/consent steps before authoring a ScreenCI .screenci.ts script. It drives a real browser from the CLI: navigate, snapshot, click, type.

Use these commands rather than writing a Playwright script of your own. A throwaway script starts signed out, launches whichever browser it defaults to, and needs its own teardown; every one of those differences sends you chasing selectors the recording will never see.

When Inspecting Pages For ScreenCI

If the app needs a sign-in, load the session ScreenCI already saved instead of signing in here. Otherwise you explore a signed-out app while the recording runs signed in, and every selector you find is the wrong one:
```
playwright-cli open
playwright-cli state-load screenci/.screenci/auth/default.json
playwright-cli goto https://app.example.com
```
When that file does not exist, run npx screenci login, have the person sign in in the browser it opens, then npx screenci login --done, and load it. Never type the person's credentials into this browser, and never save state back over that file (state-save would overwrite the real session).
After the first navigation and snapshot, check whether a cookie consent or cookie policy banner appeared.
Identify the exact accept action the video script should use inside its initial hide() block, preferably a stable locator such as getByRole('button', { name: /accept|accept all|allow all|agree|ok/i }).
If multiple consent actions exist, prefer the clear accept/allow action over a dismiss-only or settings action.
Report that cookie-consent click as part of the hidden initial setup, not as a visible demo step.

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
# close the browser
playwright-cli close

Core commands

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
# --submit presses Enter after filling the element
playwright-cli fill e5 "user@example.com" --submit
playwright-cli hover e4
playwright-cli select e9 "option-value"
playwright-cli check e12
playwright-cli uncheck e12
playwright-cli snapshot
playwright-cli eval "document.title"
playwright-cli eval "el => el.textContent" e5
# get an attribute not visible in the snapshot
playwright-cli eval "el => el.getAttribute('data-testid')" e5
playwright-cli close

Navigation

playwright-cli go-back
playwright-cli go-forward
playwright-cli reload
playwright-cli press Enter
playwright-cli press ArrowDown

Snapshots

After each command, playwright-cli provides a snapshot of the current browser state.

> playwright-cli goto https://example.com
### Page
- Page URL: https://example.com/
- Page Title: Example Domain
### Snapshot
[Snapshot](.playwright-cli/page-2026-02-14T19-22-42-679Z.yml)

You can also take a snapshot on demand. Options can be combined.

# default - save to a file with timestamp-based name
playwright-cli snapshot

# snapshot an element instead of the whole page
playwright-cli snapshot "#main"

# limit snapshot depth for efficiency
playwright-cli snapshot --depth=4
playwright-cli snapshot e34

The global --raw option strips page status and generated code, returning only the result value. Use it to pipe output into other tools.

playwright-cli --raw snapshot > before.yml
playwright-cli click e5
playwright-cli --raw snapshot > after.yml
diff before.yml after.yml

Targeting elements

By default, use refs from the snapshot to interact with page elements.

# get snapshot with refs
playwright-cli snapshot

# interact using a ref
playwright-cli click e15

You can also use css selectors or Playwright locators.

# css selector
playwright-cli click "#main > button.submit"

# role locator
playwright-cli click "getByRole('button', { name: 'Submit' })"

# test id
playwright-cli click "getByTestId('submit-button')"

Browser Sessions

# create a named browser session
playwright-cli -s=mysession open example.com
playwright-cli -s=mysession click e6
playwright-cli -s=mysession close

playwright-cli list
# close all browsers
playwright-cli close-all

Installation

If global playwright-cli is not available, try a local version:

npx --no-install playwright-cli --version

Otherwise install it globally:

npm install -g @playwright/cli@latest

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

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