{"slug": "playwriter", "name": "Playwriter", "category": "productivity", "category_name": "Productivity", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 2.784, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-12-21", "latest": "2026-04-28", "why": "try out playwriter if you want an extension that connects to opencode or claude code instead", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "try out playwriter if you want an extension that connects to opencode or claude code instead", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "playwriter.dev", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://playwriter.dev/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Playwriter", "playwriter"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 758261696, "item_id": 47391356, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47391356", "by": "zxspectrumk48", "date": "2026-03-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I found this one working amazingly well", "excerpt": "I found this one working amazingly well (same idea - connect to existing session): https://github.com/remorses/playwriter", "context": "", "use_case": "Connect to existing browser session", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let your Coding Agent debug the browser session with Chrome DevTools MCP"}, {"id": 753187152, "item_id": 47074197, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47074197", "by": "xmorse", "date": "2026-02-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Mainly using playwriter.dev to help debug CSS issues on the page.", "excerpt": "Mainly using playwriter.dev to help debug CSS issues on the page. It's an extension you can enable in Chrome and let agents control the browser via CDP https://github.com/remorses/playwriter", "context": "", "use_case": "debugging CSS in browser", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you employ LLMs for UI development?"}, {"id": 746051968, "item_id": 46628248, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46628248", "by": "TheTaytay", "date": "2026-01-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019d like to see this other browser plugin\u2019s API be exposed via your same CLI", "excerpt": "I really like this idea! I\u2019d like to see this other browser plugin\u2019s API be exposed via your same CLI, so I don\u2019t have to only control a separate browser instance. https://github.com/remorses/playwriter (I haven\u2019t investigated enough to know how feasible it is, but as I was reading about your tool, I immediately wanted to control existing tabs from my main browser, rather than \u201cjust\u201d a debug-driven separate browser i", "context": "", "use_case": "control existing browser tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 741511616, "item_id": 46344476, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46344476", "by": "daertommy", "date": "2025-12-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "try out playwriter if you want an extension that connects to opencode or claude code instead", "excerpt": "try out playwriter if you want an extension that connects to opencode or claude code instead, so it also has access to local files and bash. for example I use it to file taxes: claude reads local pdf files and then writes the numbers in the page https://playwriter.dev", "context": "", "use_case": "browser automation for coding agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude in Chrome"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["scraping planning portals", "connect to existing browser session", "debugging css in browser", "control existing browser tabs", "browser automation for coding agents"], "compared": [], "makers": [{"id": 740430640, "item_id": 46276915, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46276915", "by": "xmorse", "date": "2025-12-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It consumes less context than playwright MCP and is more capable", "excerpt": "https://playwriter.dev A browser automation Chrome extension and MCP. It consumes less context than playwright MCP and is more capable: it uses the playwright API directly, the Chrome extension is a CDP protocol proxy via WebSockets. I use it for automating workflows in development but also filing taxes and other boring tasks", "context": "", "use_case": "browser automation, filing taxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47931470", "title": "Scraping 241 UK council planning portals \u2013 2.6M decisions so far", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47390817", "title": "Let your Coding Agent debug the browser session with Chrome DevTools MCP", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47073838", "title": "Ask HN: How do you employ LLMs for UI development?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46616481", "title": "item 46616481", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46339777", "title": "Claude in Chrome", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264491", "title": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 767022000, "item_id": 47938875, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47938875", "by": "stevem1978", "date": "2026-04-28", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "i used playwriter to pick a random number and scrape it then write the details to a CSV", "excerpt": "I just signed up because of this thread. this is something I did 12 months ago. I only did northwest IDOX including Wirral and Liverpool. It was a long slog so i salute you. I am not experienced at this at all but I managed to get around 107k from Wirral. the parsing afterwards was a bit crap. I could probably dig out the code from somewhere. the approach i took was quite long winded: created a txt file with ID numbe", "context": "", "use_case": "scraping planning portals", "switched_from": "", "story": "Scraping 241 UK council planning portals \u2013 2.6M decisions so far"}, {"id": 758261696, "item_id": 47391356, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47391356", "by": "zxspectrumk48", "date": "2026-03-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I found this one working amazingly well", "excerpt": "I found this one working amazingly well (same idea - connect to existing session): https://github.com/remorses/playwriter", "context": "", "use_case": "Connect to existing browser session", "switched_from": "", "story": "Let your Coding Agent debug the browser session with Chrome DevTools MCP"}, {"id": 753187152, "item_id": 47074197, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47074197", "by": "xmorse", "date": "2026-02-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Mainly using playwriter.dev to help debug CSS issues on the page.", "excerpt": "Mainly using playwriter.dev to help debug CSS issues on the page. It's an extension you can enable in Chrome and let agents control the browser via CDP https://github.com/remorses/playwriter", "context": "", "use_case": "debugging CSS in browser", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you employ LLMs for UI development?"}, {"id": 746051968, "item_id": 46628248, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46628248", "by": "TheTaytay", "date": "2026-01-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I\u2019d like to see this other browser plugin\u2019s API be exposed via your same CLI", "excerpt": "I really like this idea! I\u2019d like to see this other browser plugin\u2019s API be exposed via your same CLI, so I don\u2019t have to only control a separate browser instance. https://github.com/remorses/playwriter (I haven\u2019t investigated enough to know how feasible it is, but as I was reading about your tool, I immediately wanted to control existing tabs from my main browser, rather than \u201cjust\u201d a debug-driven separate browser i", "context": "", "use_case": "control existing browser tabs", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 741511616, "item_id": 46344476, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46344476", "by": "daertommy", "date": "2025-12-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "try out playwriter if you want an extension that connects to opencode or claude code instead", "excerpt": "try out playwriter if you want an extension that connects to opencode or claude code instead, so it also has access to local files and bash. for example I use it to file taxes: claude reads local pdf files and then writes the numbers in the page https://playwriter.dev", "context": "", "use_case": "browser automation for coding agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude in Chrome"}]}