this_file: README.md

PlaywrightAuthor

PlaywrightAuthor gives Python Playwright scripts a persistent, authenticated Chrome for Testing browser.

It finds or installs Chrome for Testing, launches it with a persistent user profile and Chrome DevTools Protocol port, and returns a normal Playwright Browser. You log in once in the visible browser; later scripts reuse the same cookies and local browser state.

from playwrightauthor import Browser

with Browser(profile="google-primary", service="Gemini") as browser:
    page = browser.get_page()
    page.goto("https://gemini.google.com/")
    print(page.title())

Install

uv add playwrightauthor
npx @puppeteer/browsers install chrome@stable

The package uses Chrome for Testing, not a normal Chrome user profile. Multiple profiles can run at the same time because each profile receives a stable CDP debug port.

First sign-in (once per profile)

playwrightauthor run --profile google-primary --service Gemini

A visible Chrome window opens. Sign in. The session is saved to the profile directory and reused on every subsequent script run.

CLI

playwrightauthor run --profile google-primary --service Gemini
playwrightauthor run --profile google-secondary --service NotebookLM
playwrightauthor status --profile google-primary
playwrightauthor profile list
playwrightauthor profile show --name google-primary

When a browser opens for sign-in, consent, captcha, or another manual step, PlaywrightAuthor shows a small dialognano prompt describing the service, profile, and task. Suppress it from Python with suppress_dialog=True or from the CLI with --suppress-dialog.

Python API

from playwrightauthor import Browser, AsyncBrowser

with Browser(profile="work", suppress_dialog=True) as browser:
    page = browser.get_page()
    page.goto("https://github.com/")

Browser and AsyncBrowser accept profile, service, task, verbose, and suppress_dialog.

Documentation

Practical setup, CLI, profile, API, architecture, and troubleshooting guides live in docs/.

Local docs preview:

cd docs
bundle install
bundle exec jekyll serve

Development

uv run ruff check --fix src tests
uv run ruff format src tests
uvx hatch test          # runs offline in < 1 s, no Chrome needed

Run only the slow browser-integration tests (requires Chrome):

uv run pytest -m slow