Version: 1.8.0

Getting Started

Installation#

Use npm or Yarn to install Playwright in your Node.js project. See system requirements.

$ npm i -D playwright

This single command downloads the Playwright NPM package and browser binaries for Chromium, Firefox and WebKit. To modify this behavior see installation parameters.

Usage#

Once installed, you can require Playwright in a Node.js script, and launch any of the 3 browsers (chromium, firefox and webkit).

const { chromium } = require('playwright');
(async () => {
const browser = await chromium.launch();
// Create pages, interact with UI elements, assert values
await browser.close();
})();

Playwright APIs are asynchronous and return Promise objects. Our code examples use the async/await pattern to ease readability. The code is wrapped in an unnamed async arrow function which is invoking itself.

(async () => { // Start of async arrow function
// Function code
// ...
})(); // End of the function and () to invoke itself

First script#

In our first script, we will navigate to whatsmyuseragent.org and take a screenshot in WebKit.

const { webkit } = require('playwright');
(async () => {
const browser = await webkit.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto('http://whatsmyuseragent.org/');
await page.screenshot({ path: `example.png` });
await browser.close();
})();

By default, Playwright runs the browsers in headless mode. To see the browser UI, pass the headless: false flag while launching the browser. You can also use slowMo to slow down execution. Learn more in the debugging tools section.

firefox.launch({ headless: false, slowMo: 50 });

Record scripts#

Command Line Interface CLI can be used to record user interactions and generate JavaScript code.

$ npx playwright codegen wikipedia.org

TypeScript support#

Playwright includes built-in support for TypeScript. Type definitions will be imported automatically. It is recommended to use type-checking to improve the IDE experience.

In JavaScript#

Add the following to the top of your JavaScript file to get type-checking in VS Code or WebStorm.

//@ts-check
// ...

Alternatively, you can use JSDoc to set types for variables.

/** @type {import('playwright').Page} */
let page;

In TypeScript#

TypeScript support will work out-of-the-box. Types can also be imported explicitly.

let page: import('playwright').Page;

System requirements#

Playwright requires Node.js version 10.17 or above. The browser binaries for Chromium, Firefox and WebKit work across the 3 platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux):

  • Windows: Works with Windows and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
  • macOS: Requires 10.14 or above.
  • Linux: Depending on your Linux distribution, you might need to install additional dependencies to run the browsers.
    • Firefox requires Ubuntu 18.04+
    • For Ubuntu 18.04, the additional dependencies are defined in our Docker image, which is based on Ubuntu.