Persist a per-install fallback identity for the extension so Chromium-family browsers without chrome.identity profile data no longer collapse to browser-only relay keys and replace each other.
Also stop replaced workers from reclaiming the relay slot while the replacement connection is merely idle, add a regression test that launches a second Chromium context against the same relay, and bump the shipped package versions/changelogs for the extension and playwriter packages.
Chrome popup windows (window.open with features, OAuth login popups)
could not be controlled by Playwriter because chrome.debugger does not
attach to separate popup windows. Agents had to work around this with
cmd+click (`{ modifiers: ['Meta'] }`) to coerce new tabs instead.
The extension now listens for chrome.windows.onCreated with
type === 'popup' and relocates the tab(s) into the source tab's window,
then auto-attaches Playwriter so the new tab appears in context.pages().
Gating: the popup is only relocated when the source tab is already
Playwriter-connected. Otherwise the popup is left alone so unrelated
sites keep their normal Chrome popup behavior. Source tab is discovered
via chrome.webNavigation.onCreatedNavigationTarget because
chrome.tabs.Tab.openerTabId is unreliable for window.open popups on
Chromium 145 (leaves it null).
Focus is not stolen — the relocated tab is appended at the end of the
source tab's strip (index: -1) but the user's active tab stays active.
Executor changes
- Replaced setupPopupDetection with setupNewPageLogging. Warning
message changed from "Popup window detected ... cannot be controlled"
to "New page opened from current page (index N, initial url: ...)"
pointing the agent at the controllable tab.
- Added MIN_EXTENSION_PLAYWRITER_VERSION check so agents running with
old extensions see a targeted warning to update via chrome://extensions.
- enqueueWarning is now called from warnIfExtensionOutdated so the LLM
sees version-skew messages in its warning stream, not just stdout.
Extension changes
- New `webNavigation` permission for the source-tab correlation map.
- connectTab now verifies `chrome.tabs.get(tabId)` before writing an
`error` state, preventing dead tabs from leaking into store.tabs /
badge counts / group sync when a tab closes mid-attach.
- popupSourceTabMap entries are cleaned up both on a 10s timeout and
when chrome.tabs.onRemoved fires, capping memory for plain-new-tab
cases that never trigger windows.onCreated.
Tests
- popup-relocation.test.ts verifies both paths: when a Playwriter tab
is connected the popup is relocated into the main window and appears
in context.pages(); when no tab is connected the popup-type window
remains (extension does not interfere).
Skill docs
- Removed section #10's cmd+click workaround; added a note about
auto-relocation under "working with pages".
Versions
- extension 0.0.79 -> 0.0.80
- playwriter 0.0.103 -> 0.0.104
Chrome's chrome.debugger.attach API refuses to attach to tabs containing
chrome-extension:// iframes from other extensions (LastPass, SurfingKeys,
password managers, etc). This causes the extension to immediately disconnect
after clicking the icon.
Two-layer fix:
1. Pre-attachment (removeRestrictedIframes): when chrome.debugger.attach fails
with the chrome-extension:// error, use chrome.scripting.executeScript to
remove restricted iframes from the DOM, then retry attachment. Requires
new 'scripting' permission.
2. Runtime filtering (onDebuggerEvent): when Target.attachedToTarget arrives
for a restricted child target (injected after debugger attached), filter it
out immediately — don't track, don't forward to relay, detach the child
target. Defense-in-depth against runtime re-injection by other extensions'
content scripts.
Test: loads a fixture extension alongside playwriter, creates a page with a
chrome-extension:// iframe, enables the debugger, and verifies it stays
connected and can execute JS.
Closes#18
Bundle the extension into the CLI so fresh AVPS and local source checkouts can start a Playwriter-ready Chrome for Testing or Chromium without separate installation steps. Also disable the packaged welcome tab, reuse Playwright\s managed Chromium fallback, surface searched browser paths on discovery failures, and document that managed browser launches already enable the tab-capture flags needed for recording on normal web pages.
Respect PLAYWRITER_EXTENSION_DIST in the Prism download step so release builds include welcome page Prism scripts in dist-release/src instead of polluting dist/src.
Prevent service worker startup crashes in environments where chrome.contextMenus is undefined. Use optional chaining for create, update, and onClicked registration so missing context menu APIs degrade gracefully instead of throwing uncaught TypeError.
The alarm added in 0.0.73 was a no-op — the maintainLoop while(true) + sleep(1000)
and setInterval(checkMemory, 5000) already keep the service worker alive.
Removing it drops the unnecessary alarms permission from the manifest.
Bumps extension to 0.0.75.
osascript 'tell application Chrome to open location' blocks indefinitely
waiting for Chrome to finish handling the chrome:// URL. The open command
returns immediately.
When Playwright sends Target.detachFromTarget via the root browser session
(no top-level sessionId), the extension couldn't find the target tab because
it only checked msg.params.sessionId for routing. This caused 'No tab found'
errors that cascaded into disconnects and instability.
- Add getTabForCommand() helper with params.sessionId fallback so any command
referencing a session in its params can be routed when the top-level
sessionId is absent
- No-op Target.detachFromTarget for stale/unknown sessions instead of throwing
- Always re-apply tab group color on every sync to prevent Chrome resetting
it to white
- Replace silent .catch() with error log in aria-snapshot OOPIF detach
- Add regression test using raw WebSocket to verify routing without sessionId
Extension bumped to 0.0.74.
This commit batches the pending workspace updates that were coupled in practice: extension reliability fixes, ghost cursor persistence across MPA navigations, timeout tuning, and aligned docs/versioning updates so behavior and guidance stay in sync.
Key updates:\n- extension: add MV3 keepalive via chrome.alarms, add alarms permission, and bump extension changelog/version to 0.0.73 to reduce silent relay disconnects while idle\n- playwriter runtime: raise default action timeout to 60s while keeping navigation timeout separate; increase relay /version fetch timeout to 2000ms\n- recording + cursor: add persistent cursor init scripts with Page.addScriptToEvaluateOnNewDocument, remove init script on teardown, and ensure cursor enablement before applying mouse actions\n- demo video defaults: use 0.5s side buffer (1s total) and default idle speed 6x for createDemoVideo/computeIdleSections\n- tests/docs: keep click-error tests deterministic with explicit 5000ms per-click timeout, remove outdated click-timeout section from skill mistakes, and update package/changelog entries
syncTabGroup was including 'connecting' tabs in the group unconditionally,
so when the relay WebSocket closed and all tabs transitioned to 'connecting',
the group stayed green. Now 'connecting' tabs are only included when the
relay is actually connected (connectionState === 'connected'). When the
relay is dead, 'connecting' tabs are excluded and the group gets cleaned up.
The onUpdated handler at line ~1601 already guards against the
ungroup→disconnect loop for 'connecting' tabs, so this is safe.
The function is now exposed as `snapshot()` in the executor sandbox scope.
`accessibilitySnapshot` remains as a backward-compatible alias pointing to
the same function, so existing agents and saved commands continue to work.
Updated all code examples across skill.md, README, PLAYWRITER_AGENTS,
docs, tests, and the extension welcome page to use the shorter name.
The extension now reports which playwriter version it was built with via a
`?v=` query param on its WebSocket connection to the relay. The relay stores
this and exposes it in `/extension/status` and `/extensions/status` endpoints.
CLI and MCP compare the extension's bundled version against their own VERSION.
If the extension was built with a newer playwriter, a warning is shown:
Playwriter 0.0.60 is outdated (extension requires 0.0.62).
Run `npm install -g playwriter@latest` or update the playwriter package.
This is fully backward compatible:
- Old extensions without `?v=` get `playwriterVersion: null`, no warning
- No WS protocol changes (version is in URL query params)
- Warning fires once per executor/session lifetime
Flow:
vite build reads playwriter/package.json → injects __PLAYWRITER_VERSION__
→ extension sends ?v=X.Y.Z on WS connect → relay stores in ExtensionInfo
→ /extension/status returns playwriterVersion → CLI/executor checks & warns
Route Runtime.enable/disable through the incoming child sessionId instead of always using the tab root session so OOPIF iframe targets receive execution contexts reliably. Add a focused relay regression test for empty-src cross-origin iframe attach flow and update extension version/changelog for release tracking.
When a user drags a tab into the playwriter group, connectTab() sets
its state to 'connecting'. syncTabGroup() previously only kept
'connected' tabs in the group, so it would immediately ungroup the
'connecting' tab. This ungroup fired chrome.tabs.onUpdated, which
called disconnectTab(). When the original connectTab() resolved, it
re-added the tab, triggering onUpdated again — creating an infinite
add/remove/add/remove loop.
Fix: include 'connecting' tabs in syncTabGroup's group membership
filter. This way syncTabGroup won't fight the user's intent by
removing tabs that are still being set up. Error-state tabs are
still correctly excluded from the group.
Tabs created via Ghost Browser's openTab API now automatically
attach to Playwriter's debugger, making them immediately available
in context.pages() without requiring manual extension icon click.
- Extension connections are now tracked per-connection with isolated state
- Each connection has its own connectedTargets, pendingRequests, messageId
- Sessions are bound to specific extensionId via SessionMetadata
- New /extensions/status endpoint for listing all connected browsers
- CLI session new shows browser selection when multiple connected
- Browser detection via navigator.userAgentData (Ghost, Brave, Edge, etc)
- Added identity permission for Chrome profile email detection
- Constants, types, proxy factory, and handler in one file
- Works in both Node.js (executor) and Chrome (extension) environments
- executor.ts imports createGhostBrowserChrome factory
- background.ts imports handleGhostBrowserCommand handler
- Export store, connectionManager, logger, sendMessage, getTabBySessionId from background.ts
- recording.ts now imports directly instead of using initRecording()
- Simplify RecordingRelay constructor to take params directly instead of interface
- Change offscreen.ts from single recording variable to Map<tabId, RecordingState>
- Update all recording message handlers to route by tabId
- Track sessionId in relay server for proper recording lookup when stopping
- All recording operations now consistently require tabId
- Fix misleading comment about user gesture requirement in background.ts
- Remove unused 'target' variable in /recording/stop endpoint
- Fix /recording/cancel to not delete all recordings (handled by event)
- Remove redundant security middlewares (CORS handles it)
- Add getChromeRestartCommand() with --allowlisted-extension-id and --auto-accept-this-tab-capture flags
- Move EXTENSION_IDS to utils.ts for cleaner imports
- Add sessionId support for multi-tab recording
- Add helpful error message when activeTab permission is missing
- Add null check for empty extension result
- Document offscreen recording flow with ASCII diagram
- Fix vite output path (was broken lib/background.mjs, now background.js)
- Import recording types from protocol.ts instead of duplicating in background.ts
- Remove dead getSessionId() and unused sessionId params from screen-recording.ts
- Replace 4 executor wrapper functions with single withRecordingDefaults helper
- Fix binary chunk routing with lastRecordingMetadataTabId tracking
- Add ExtensionStopRecordingResult type for proper extension/relay separation
Saves ~56 lines while improving correctness of multi-tab recording.
- Move welcome.html to src/
- Use vite HTML inputs instead of static copy for offscreen.html and welcome.html
- Source HTML references .ts, vite transforms to .js
- Update paths in background.ts to src/
- Use chrome.tabCapture.getMediaStreamId() from service worker
- Pass stream ID to offscreen document for MediaRecorder
- Recording survives page navigation (unlike getDisplayMedia)
- Requires user to click extension icon first (activeTab permission)
- Add esbuild to build offscreen.ts separately
- Update prompt docs with recording instructions
Work in progress for navigation-safe screen recording.
Implemented:
- tabCapture permission in manifest
- Recording handlers in extension background.ts
- Recording endpoints in relay server
- Binary WebSocket streaming for video chunks
- Protocol types for recording messages
- Executor integration
Needs:
- Offscreen document implementation (tabCapture not available in service workers)
- Connect background.ts to offscreen document via messages
- Update manifest for offscreen document
The offscreen.ts/html files are scaffolding for this next step.
Tommy D. Rossi