microsoft

Playwright — Testing skill for Claude Code

Testing community intermediate

claude-plugins-official Browser automation, E2E testing, screenshots.

How to install Playwright

This entry records only its repository, not the path inside it, so there is no exact command to give. Open microsoft/playwright-mcp and copy the folder into ~/.claude/skills/, or the file into ~/.claude/agents/.

What Playwright does

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides browser automation capabilities using [Playwright](https://playwright.dev). This server enables LLMs to interact with web pages through structured accessibility snapshots, bypassing the need for screenshots or visually-tuned models.

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README

Playwright MCP

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides browser automation capabilities using [Playwright](https://playwright.dev). This server enables LLMs to interact with web pages through structured accessibility snapshots, bypassing the need for screenshots or visually-tuned models.

Playwright MCP vs Playwright CLI

This package provides MCP interface into Playwright. If you are using a **coding agent**, you might benefit from using the [CLI+SKILLS](https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-cli) instead.

  • **CLI**: Modern **coding agents** increasingly favor CLI–based workflows exposed as SKILLs over MCP because CLI invocations are more token-efficient: they avoid loading large tool schemas and verbose accessibility trees into the model context, allowing agents to act through concise, purpose-built commands. This makes CLI + SKILLs better suited for high-throughput coding agents that must balance browser automation with large codebases, tests, and reasoning within limited context windows. **Learn more about [Playwright CLI with SKILLS](https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-cli)**.

  • **MCP**: MCP remains relevant for specialized agentic loops that benefit from persistent state, rich introspection, and iterative reasoning over page structure, such as exploratory automation, self-healing tests, or long-running autonomous workflows where maintaining continuous browser context outweighs token cost concerns.

Key Features

  • Fast and lightweight. Uses Playwright's accessibility tree, not pixel-based input.
  • LLM-friendly. No vision models needed, operates purely on structured data.
  • Deterministic tool application. Avoids ambiguity common with screenshot-based approaches.

Requirements

  • Node.js 18 or newer
  • VS Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Desktop, Goose, Junie or any other MCP client

Getting started

First, install the Playwright MCP server with your client.

**Standard config** works in most of the tools:

{

...