Playwright CLI Installation Guide

How to install the Playwright CLI for use with Claude Code, and why it's the best browser automation option available.

Installation

Three commands to get up and running:

1. Install the Playwright CLI

npm install -g @anthropic-ai/playwright-cli

Installs the CLI globally so it's available from any project.

2. Install the browser engine

npx playwright install chromium

Downloads the Chromium browser engine that Playwright uses under the hood. To use a different engine (Firefox, WebKit, Edge), substitute the browser name or check the Playwright docs.

3. Install the Claude Code skill

playwright-cli install --skills

Installs the Playwright skill into your Claude Code project so it knows how to use the CLI. The skill is a living document -- you can edit, audit, or recreate it with the skill creator.

Note: This installs the skill to the current project only (.claude/skills/). To make it available globally across all projects, copy the skill to ~/.claude/skills/playwright-cli/:

cp -r .claude/skills/playwright-cli ~/.claude/skills/

Do not use claude mcp add ... @playwright/mcp for this -- that installs the Playwright MCP server, which uses ~90k more tokens per task than the CLI (see comparison below).

Comparison: CLI vs MCP Server vs Claude in Chrome

All three approaches can interact with a browser programmatically, but they differ significantly in efficiency.

Feature	Playwright CLI	Playwright MCP Server	Claude in Chrome Extension
Token usage	Lowest	~90,000 more tokens for the same task	Highest
Headless support	Yes	Yes	No
Parallel execution	Yes	Yes	No (one tab at a time)

Why the token difference is so large

All three tools rely on the browser's accessibility tree -- the structure that maps a website so assistive technologies (like screen readers) can navigate it.

The difference is in how that tree reaches Claude Code:

• MCP Server -- Sends the entire accessibility tree into Claude Code's context on every interaction. The tree is large, so each pass is a massive token dump.
• CLI -- Saves the full accessibility tree to disk, then sends only a summary to Claude Code with just the information it needs. Far fewer tokens.
• Chrome Extension -- Takes screenshots of the web page. Images are the most token-expensive format of all, making this the costliest option. It also cannot run headless or in parallel.

Bottom line

The CLI can do everything the MCP server can do -- and more -- at a fraction of the token cost. The Chrome extension is the least efficient option across every dimension.

Demo

See DEMO.md for a hands-on demo that runs 3 parallel sub-agents to test a contact form from different angles (happy path, validation, edge cases).

Source

Based on: Playwright CLI for Claude Code by Chase Lean (Chase AI Plus)