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Command line tools

Playwright comes with the command line tools.

Usage​

npx playwright --help
# Running from `package.json` script
{
  "scripts": {
    "help": "playwright --help"
  }
}

Install browsers​

Playwright can install supported browsers.

# Running without arguments will install default browsers
npx playwright install

You can also install specific browsers by providing an argument:

# Install WebKit
npx playwright install webkit

See all supported browsers:

npx playwright install --help

Install system dependencies​

System dependencies can get installed automatically. This is useful for CI environments.

# See command help
npx playwright install-deps

You can also install the dependencies for a single browser only by passing it as an argument:

npx playwright install-deps chromium

It's also possible to combine install-deps with install and install by that the browsers and OS dependencies with a single command. This would do both for Chromium, but you can also leave it out.

npx playwright install --with-deps chromium

Generate code​

npx playwright codegen wikipedia.org

Run codegen and perform actions in the browser. Playwright CLI will generate JavaScript code for the user interactions. codegen will attempt to generate resilient text-based selectors.

Preserve authenticated state​

Run codegen with --save-storage to save cookies and localStorage at the end. This is useful to separately record authentication step and reuse it later.

npx playwright codegen --save-storage=auth.json
# Perform authentication and exit.
# auth.json will contain the storage state.

Run with --load-storage to consume previously loaded storage. This way, all cookies and localStorage will be restored, bringing most web apps to the authenticated state.

npx playwright open --load-storage=auth.json my.web.app
npx playwright codegen --load-storage=auth.json my.web.app
# Perform actions in authenticated state.

Codegen with custom setup​

If you would like to use codegen in some non-standard setup (for example, use browserContext.route(url, handler[, options])), it is possible to call page.pause() that will open a separate window with codegen controls.

const { chromium } = require('playwright');

(async () => {
  // Make sure to run headed.
  const browser = await chromium.launch({ headless: false });

  // Setup context however you like.
  const context = await browser.newContext({ /* pass any options */ });
  await context.route('**/*', route => route.continue());

  // Pause the page, and start recording manually.
  const page = await context.newPage();
  await page.pause();
})();

Open pages​

With open, you can use Playwright bundled browsers to browse web pages. Playwright provides cross-platform WebKit builds that can be used to reproduce Safari rendering across Windows, Linux and macOS.

# Open page in Chromium
npx playwright open example.com
# Open page in WebKit
npx playwright wk example.com

Emulate devices​

open can emulate mobile and tablet devices from the playwright.devices list.

# Emulate iPhone 11.
npx playwright open --device="iPhone 11" wikipedia.org

Emulate color scheme and viewport size​

# Emulate screen size and color scheme.
npx playwright open --viewport-size=800,600 --color-scheme=dark twitter.com

Emulate geolocation, language and timezone​

# Emulate timezone, language & location
# Once page opens, click the "my location" button to see geolocation in action
npx playwright open --timezone="Europe/Rome" --geolocation="41.890221,12.492348" --lang="it-IT" maps.google.com

Inspect selectors​

During open or codegen, you can use following API inside the developer tools console of any browser.

playwright.$(selector)​

Query Playwright selector, using the actual Playwright query engine, for example:

> playwright.$('.auth-form >> text=Log in');

<button>Log in</button>

playwright.$$(selector)​

Same as playwright.$, but returns all matching elements.

> playwright.$$('li >> text=John')

> [<li>, <li>, <li>, <li>]

playwright.inspect(selector)​

Reveal element in the Elements panel (if DevTools of the respective browser supports it).

> playwright.inspect('text=Log in')

playwright.locator(selector)​

Query Playwright element using the actual Playwright query engine, for example:

> playwright.locator('.auth-form', { hasText: 'Log in' });

> Locator ()
>   - element: button
>   - elements: [button]

playwright.selector(element)​

Generates selector for the given element.

> playwright.selector($0)

"div[id="glow-ingress-block"] >> text=/.*Hello.*/"

Take screenshot​

# See command help
npx playwright screenshot --help
# Wait 3 seconds before capturing a screenshot after page loads ('load' event fires)
npx playwright screenshot \
    --device="iPhone 11" \
    --color-scheme=dark \
    --wait-for-timeout=3000 \
    twitter.com twitter-iphone.png
# Capture a full page screenshot
npx playwright screenshot --full-page en.wikipedia.org wiki-full.png

Generate PDF​

PDF generation only works in Headless Chromium.

# See command help
npx playwright pdf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF wiki.pdf