playwriter/README.md

playwriter

Like Playwright MCP but via extension. 90% less context window. 10x more capable (full playwright API)

Comparison

BrowserMCP

Playwriter has access to the full playwright API available, it can send any CDP command via the playwright methods. It only uses 1 tool execute to send playwright code snippets. This means that the LLM can reuse its knowledge about playwright and less context window is used to expose browser automations tools.

Playwriter is also more capable because it exposes the full playwright API instead of only a few tools.

For comparison here are the tools supported by BrowserMCP:

Navigation:

• browsermcp_browser_navigate - Navigate to a URL
• browsermcp_browser_go_back - Go back to the previous page
• browsermcp_browser_go_forward - Go forward to the next page Page Inspection:
• browsermcp_browser_snapshot - Capture accessibility snapshot of the current page (use this to get references to elements)
• browsermcp_browser_screenshot - Take a screenshot of the current page
• browsermcp_browser_get_console_logs - Get console logs from the browser Interactions:
• browsermcp_browser_click - Click on an element (requires element reference from snapshot)
• browsermcp_browser_hover - Hover over an element
• browsermcp_browser_type - Type text into an editable element (with optional submit)
• browsermcp_browser_select_option - Select an option in a dropdown
• browsermcp_browser_press_key - Press a key on the keyboard Utilities:
• browsermcp_browser_wait - Wait for a specified time in seconds

Using with Playwright

You can use playwriter programmatically with playwright-core:

import { chromium } from 'playwright-core'
import { startPlayWriterCDPRelayServer, getCdpUrl } from 'playwriter'

const port = 19987
const server = await startPlayWriterCDPRelayServer({ port })


const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(getCdpUrl({ port }))

const context = browser.contexts()[0]
const page = context.pages()[0]

await page.goto('https://example.com')
await page.screenshot({ path: 'screenshot.png' })

await browser.close()
server.close()