How do I launch a Google Chrome instance using Playwright?

Answer

To launch a Google Chrome instance using Playwright, you'll need to install the Playwright library and import it into your project. Playwright provides a method to launch Chromium-based browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

First, install the Playwright library:

npm install -D @playwright/test

Next, import Playwright in your TypeScript file:

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';

Now, you can launch Chrome by calling the chromium.launch() method. This returns a Browser object representing an instance of Chrome running on your machine. You can interact with the browser programmatically using this object.

For example, create a new page in the browser by calling browser.newPage(). This returns a Page object representing a new tab in the browser. Navigate to a website using page.goto(url), replacing "url" with the URL of the website you want to visit.

If you need more control over Chrome's launch or configuration, such as specifying command-line arguments or setting environment variables, Playwright provides additional methods for doing so. For example, to run Chrome in headless mode (without displaying any windows), pass { headless: true } as an option when launching Chromium.

Here's a complete example:

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';

test('Launch Chrome and navigate to a website', async ({chromium}) => {
  const browser = await chromium.launch({ headless: true });
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://ray.run/');
  // Perform any additional actions or assertions here
  await browser.close();
});

With these tools, you can easily automate tasks in Google Chrome using Playwright!