Changelog

This changelog combines updates from both the Playwriter MCP/CLI package and the Chrome extension.

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Playwriter 0.0.80 (Latest)

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Improvements

• Descriptive click timeout errors: When locator.click() times out due to actionability failures, the error now includes the reason (e.g. “Element is not visible”, “Element is not stable”, “button intercepts pointer events”) instead of just “Timeout exceeded.”
• Faster action timeouts for agents: Default Playwright action timeout reduced from 10s to 2s. Navigation timeout remains at 10s. Agents now get fast failure with descriptive errors instead of waiting 10 seconds for a generic timeout.

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Playwriter 0.0.79

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Improvements

• Faster ghost cursor motion defaults: Reduced min/max movement durations and increased base movement speed so pointer travel feels snappier while preserving smooth easing.
• Recording docs now emphasize interaction-driven navigation: Updated skill guidance to prefer click/type/hover flows during recordings so ghost cursor motion is visible and human-like instead of bypassed by direct goto jumps.

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Playwriter 0.0.78

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Features

• Add resizeImage sandbox utility: Standalone function to resize images, useful for shrinking screenshots before reading them back into context. Default LLM-optimal mode fits within 1568×1568px; also supports explicit width/height/maxDimension. Available in execute sandbox alongside other utilities.

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Playwriter 0.0.77

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Improvements

• Cap speed-up output to source fps in FFmpeg pipeline: Speed-up filters now use explicit fps=fps=<source>:round=down and set output -r to the same probed frame rate, keeping accelerated sections bounded to the recording’s native fps.

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Playwriter 0.0.76

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Bug Fixes

• Fix ultra-short/slow demo generation on variable-framerate recordings: probeVideo() now prefers avg_frame_rate and clamps output FPS to sane bounds, avoiding accidental fps=30000 filter chains.
• Avoid speeding entire video when no execute timestamps exist: computeIdleSections() now returns no idle sections when timestamps are empty, so createDemoVideo() preserves original speed instead of aggressively compressing full recordings.

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Playwriter 0.0.75

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Improvements

• Switch minimal cursor to triangular pointer icon: Updated the minimal ghost cursor style to use a stylized triangular SVG pointer (with subtle drop shadow) instead of the circular indicator, while keeping dot and screenstudio styles available.

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Extension 0.0.72

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Bug Fixes

• Use runtime-scoped root CDP tab session IDs: Root tab sessions now use pw-tab-<scope>-<n> instead of pw-tab-<n>, where scope is a random value generated once per extension runtime. This prevents session ID collisions across multiple connected Chrome profiles.

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Playwriter 0.0.72

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Improvements

• Reduce false “extension disconnected” on relay restarts: playwriter session new now waits longer for extension reconnect and adds a short polling grace window before failing, preventing transient post-restart races from surfacing as hard disconnect errors.

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Extension 0.0.71

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Bug Fixes

• Route Runtime.enable to child CDP sessions: Runtime enable/disable now uses the incoming sessionId when targeting OOPIF child sessions instead of always using the tab root session. This fixes missing Runtime.executionContextCreated events for child iframe targets, which could cause iframe locator operations to hang.

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Playwriter 0.0.71

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Features

• Add recording and ghostCursor namespaces in execute context: New recording.start/stop/isRecording/cancel and ghostCursor.show/hide APIs are now exposed for cleaner scripting while keeping startRecording, stopRecording, isRecording, and cancelRecording as backward-compatible aliases.
• Manual cursor overlay controls: Cursor overlay can now be shown/hidden explicitly outside recording flows for screenshot and demo generation.

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Playwriter 0.0.70

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Features

• Ghost cursor overlay during recording: Playwriter now auto-enables a smooth in-page ghost cursor when startRecording() is called, driven by page.onMouseAction callbacks from the Playwright fork so both page.mouse.* and locator.click() actions are visualized.

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Tests

• Add ghost-cursor integration coverage: Extended on-mouse-action.test.ts to verify callback-driven cursor animation and teardown in real extension-connected runs.

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Extension 0.0.69

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Features

• First extension keeps connection: When multiple Playwriter extensions are installed, the actively-used one (with tabs) now keeps the connection. New extensions are rejected with code 4002 instead of taking over.
• Smarter reconnection: Extension now polls /extension/status for activeTargets count and only attempts reconnection when the other extension has no active tabs.

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Bug Fixes

• Proper state handling for 4002 rejection: Fixed issue where extension would keep retrying forever when rejected during WebSocket handshake. Now correctly enters extension-replaced polling state.

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Playwriter 0.0.69

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Bug Fixes

• Scope CDP tab session IDs by extension runtime: Switched root tab IDs to pw-tab-<scope>-<n> so concurrent extension connections do not reuse the same pw-tab-1, pw-tab-2, etc. The scope is generated once per extension runtime to avoid cross-profile collisions and ambiguous recording-route resolution.
• Standardize recording routes on CDP sessionId: Recording HTTP routes now treat sessionId as a CDP tab session ID (pw-tab-*) only, removing executor-target branching from the recording path.

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Extension 0.0.68

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Bug Fixes

• Improved connection reliability: Use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost to avoid DNS/IPv6 resolution issues
• Global connection timeout: Added 15-second global timeout wrapper around connect() to prevent hanging forever when individual timeouts fail
• Better WebSocket handling: Added settled flag to properly handle timeout/open/error/close race conditions

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Changes

• Faster retry loop: Reduced retry attempts from 30 to 5 since maintainLoop retries every 3 seconds anyway
• Allow own extension pages: Added OUR_EXTENSION_IDS to allow attaching to our own extension pages while blocking other extensions

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Playwriter 0.0.63

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Security

• Harden privileged HTTP routes against cross-origin attacks: Added route-level middleware on /cli/* and /recording/* that blocks cross-origin browser requests via Sec-Fetch-Site header validation, rejects POST requests without Content-Type: application/json (prevents the CORS preflight bypass via text/plain), and enforces token authentication when token mode is enabled.
• Token enforcement on HTTP routes: When --token is set (remote access mode), /cli/* and /recording/* routes now require Authorization: Bearer <token> or ?token=<token>, matching the behavior already documented in remote-access.md.
• Security regression tests: Added tests covering Sec-Fetch-Site blocking, Content-Type enforcement, token validation on privileged routes, and pass-through for legitimate Node.js clients.

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Playwriter 0.0.62

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Features

• Remote access support: PLAYWRITER_HOST now accepts full URLs (e.g., https://x-tunnel.traforo.dev) in addition to plain hostnames, enabling secure remote browser access through tunnels like traforo
• WebSocket over HTTPS: Automatically uses wss:// protocol when connecting to HTTPS relay hosts
• Remote access documentation: Added comprehensive guide covering architecture, setup, use cases, and security model for remote Playwriter access

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Internal

• Centralized host parsing: New parseRelayHost() utility handles URL/hostname detection and returns correct HTTP/WebSocket base URLs

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Playwriter 0.0.57

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Features

• Ghost Browser Support: Added integration with Ghost Browser APIs (multi-identity, proxies)
• Multi-browser Support: Added support for connecting to multiple browser instances/extensions
• Screen Recording: Added concurrent screen recording support in MP4 format (requires extension update)
• Iframe Handling: Improved iframe targeting using Frame objects and Runtime.enable routing
• Accessibility Snapshots: Added support for inline locators and better filtering
• CDP JSONL Logging: Added structured CDP logging to ~/.playwriter/cdp.jsonl

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Bug Fixes

• Fix hung navigations on YouTube and similar sites: Resume filtered targets (like service workers) to avoid blocking navigations
• Fix tab group infinite loop: Prevent infinite loop when dragging tabs
• Fix log dir permissions on shared machines: Move default log directory from /tmp/playwriter to ~/.playwriter so each OS user gets their own directory. Fixes startup crash when /tmp/playwriter is owned by another user.

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Playwriter 0.0.52

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Features

• First extension keeps connection: When multiple Playwriter extensions are installed (e.g., dev and prod), the first one with active tabs now keeps the connection instead of being replaced by newer connections. Idle extensions (no tabs) can still be replaced.
• Smarter extension slot detection: /extension/status endpoint now returns activeTargets count, allowing extensions to know when the slot becomes available (no active tabs).
• Accessibility snapshot format options: accessibilitySnapshot now supports format option ('yaml' or 'markdown') with deduplication of interactive refs
• Session management CLI commands: New CLI commands for managing relay sessions (playwriter sessions list, playwriter sessions kill)
• Eval CLI flag: New -e/--eval CLI flag for quick code execution from command line

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Security

• Block browser access to CLI endpoints: Prevents browsers from accessing CLI-specific endpoints

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Playwriter 0.0.48

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Bug Fixes

• Fix SSE streaming: CDP’s Network domain buffers response bodies by default, which breaks SSE/streaming - data arrives at Chrome but ReadableStream never receives it. Now Network.enable defaults to maxTotalBufferSize: 0 to disable buffering.

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Features

• Auto-switch to another page when default page is closed: When the current page is closed, MCP automatically switches to another available page instead of erroring
• Optimized screenshot token usage: Screenshots are now resized with sharp to reduce Claude token consumption

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Playwriter 0.0.40

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Features

• screenshotWithAccessibilityLabels: New utility function that takes a screenshot with Vimium-style visual labels overlaid on interactive elements
  • Labels show aria-ref IDs that can be used with page.locator('aria-ref=e5')
  • Image and accessibility snapshot are automatically included in the response
  • Labels are color-coded by element type
• Media elements in aria labels: Added img, video, audio to interactive roles with light blue color scheme

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Playwriter 0.0.36

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Features

• Visual Aria Ref Labels: New showAriaRefLabels() and hideAriaRefLabels() functions overlay Vimium-style labels on interactive elements
  • Labels show aria-ref IDs (e.g., “e1”, “e5”) that can be used with page.locator('aria-ref=e5')
  • Color-coded by element type: yellow=links, orange=buttons, coral=inputs, pink=checkboxes, peach=sliders, salmon=menus, amber=tabs
  • Auto-hides after 30 seconds

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Earlier Versions

For complete version history, see:

• Playwriter CHANGELOG.md
• Extension CHANGELOG.md