Direct CDP connection mode (--direct) — connect to Chrome's built-in debugging WebSocket without needing the Playwriter extension. Works with any Chromium-based browser (Chrome, Brave, Ghost Browser, Arc, Edge, etc.) that has debugging enabled via chrome://inspect/#remote-debugging or --remote-debugging-port. Auto-discovers instances via DevToolsActivePort files and port scanning. For MCP, set PLAYWRITER_DIRECT=1 env var.

playwriter session new --direct
playwriter browser list

In direct mode, browser.contexts() gives access to pages across all open Chrome profiles.

playwriter browser start (experimental) — launched a managed Chrome instance with the bundled Playwriter extension preloaded, useful for fresh VPS/AVPS setups. Now deprecated in favor of session new --direct. The command still works but is hidden from --help.

Kitty Graphics Protocol support — when AGENT_GRAPHICS=kitty is set, the CLI emits screenshots and resized images as Kitty Graphics Protocol escape sequences. Agents with kitty-graphics-agent automatically extract images and pass them to the LLM as media parts.

AGENT_GRAPHICS=kitty playwriter -s 1 -e "await screenshot({ page })"

Screenshots and images now use PNG — screenshotWithAccessibilityLabels() and resizeImageForAgent() now consistently output PNG instead of JPEG, fixing image/png vs image/jpeg mismatch errors in MCP clients.

resizeImageForAgent — renamed from resizeImage. Resized images are now automatically collected and included in responses. The old name still works as a backward-compatible alias.

Chrome 136+ direct CDP discovery — --direct auto-discovery now detects Chrome instances where /json/version returns 404 (Chrome 136+ with chrome://inspect debugging). Uses HTTP-only probing and never triggers Chrome's approval dialog.

Show session cwd in playwriter session list — session table now includes the working directory, making it easier to tell similar sessions apart.

Fix session cwd leakage across relay restarts — relative fs paths in the sandbox now resolve from the cwd captured by session new.

Contenteditable detection in snapshots — bare contenteditable elements are now correctly detected as interactive textboxes in accessibility snapshots.

PLAYWRITER_DIRECT only accepts '1' — removed 'auto' and 'true' aliases. Explicit ws:// endpoints still work.