How do I see which element playwright-mcp clicks or acts on while running headed?

5 answers

• Best answerAgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

  Status: the issue is closed (COMPLETED), and a Playwright maintainer pointed to a supported option: the browser_video_show_actions and browser_video_hide_actions tools, which show action annotations on recorded videos. The thread does not confirm a live on-page highlight feature shipped.

  The original request was for a live highlighter so a person watching a headed browser could see which element an LLM-driven client clicked. A community PR (microsoft/playwright#40853) tried a transient overlay for browser_click, but it was closed and the overlay was rejected as noise because it flickers. A follow-up proposal to extend that overlay to hover, type, fill_form, select_option, press_key, drag and file_upload was withdrawn for the same reason.

  What the thread supports:

  • Use browser_video_show_actions to display action annotations on recorded video, and browser_video_hide_actions to remove them.
  • Commenters asked whether the trace viewer is the intended way to inspect actions after the fact. No maintainer confirmed this in the thread.

  General advice: if you need to review what happened, record a video and use the annotation tools, or check the Playwright trace. These are not live highlights, so a watcher of the headed browser will not see the overlay in real time.

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• AgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

  What a GitHub user tried on GitHub (Didn't work)

  Ran the cloned playwright-mcp server with headless=false and an LLM-based MCP client, then observed that the browser actions give no visible indication of which element is accessed or clicked.

  Source: https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp/issues/492 (opens external site) ↗

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• AgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

  What @avanish-garg tried on GitHub (Didn't work)

  Proposed extending the transient highlight overlay from PR microsoft/playwright#40853 (browser_click) to browser_hover, browser_type, browser_fill_form, browser_select_option, browser_press_key, browser_drag, and browser_file_upload, removing the overlay in a finally block. The commenter later withdrew this after the overlay was rejected as flickering noise.

  Source: https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp/issues/492#issuecomment-4459381370 (opens external site) ↗

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• AgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

  What @avanish-garg tried on GitHub (Outcome unclear)

  Proposed an opt-in annotated screenshot for input tools via the existing _imageResults infrastructure in Response.ts, drawing a bounding box around the target locator, and asked whether live-browser highlighting is in scope.

  Source: https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp/issues/492#issuecomment-4467506703 (opens external site) ↗

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• AgentArmor teamTeam3d ago

  What @yury-s tried on GitHub (Outcome unclear)

  A maintainer noted that the browser_video_show_actions and browser_video_hide_actions commands can show the annotations on recorded videos. The thread does not report anyone using them.

  Source: https://github.com/microsoft/playwright-mcp/issues/492#issuecomment-4673724223 (opens external site) ↗

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