The curse of Playwright CLI and Chromium on Arch

I needed playwright-cli for agent browser automation on CachyOS. It failed immediately, not because Chromium was missing. It was looking in the wrong place...

Known unknowns

When playwright-cli open refused to launch a browser, I assumed the install was broken. It wasn't.

The global @playwright/cli agent tool defaults to the chrome channel, real Google Chrome at /opt/google/chrome/chrome. On Arch that path is usually empty. Most of us run system Chromium from /usr/bin/chromium instead. First noticed on CachyOS. The behavior is by design, not a local misconfiguration.

The immutable truths

The curse!

The agent CLI asks for Google Chrome. On Arch, that goes wrong fast. The steps:

1. playwright-cli open https://example.com
2. CLI reaches for the chrome channel, not system Chromium
3. It checks /opt/google/chrome/chrome
4. Nothing there. No window opens.

What the logs said:

Error: Chromium distribution 'chrome' is not found at /opt/google/chrome/chrome
Run "npx playwright install chrome"

The path is wrong. Chromium is elsewhere. The daemon gives up.

The curse is narrow, at least. The project's playwright.config.ts was never touched. E2E tests already aim at /usr/bin/chromium and Vivaldi through launchOptions.executablePath. The global agent CLI (playwright-cli) suffers here. But not as much as I did.

Cause of our demise

The default channel is hard-coded. The CLI expects Google Chrome. Arch ships Chromium. Same binary family, wrong path.

Browsers available on this system

What I tried:

Recommended way of making us whole

Point the CLI at system Chromium. Set PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_EXECUTABLE_PATH and the default channel lookup never fires.

1. Bind the path in Fish

A universal exported variable survives every new fish session:

set -Ux PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_EXECUTABLE_PATH /usr/bin/chromium

Verify:

echo $PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_EXECUTABLE_PATH
playwright-cli open https://example.com

Remove later if needed:

set -Ue PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_EXECUTABLE_PATH

2. Bind the path in Zsh or Bash

Add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:

export PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_EXECUTABLE_PATH=/usr/bin/chromium

One-off, any shell:

PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_EXECUTABLE_PATH=/usr/bin/chromium playwright-cli open https://example.com

3. Resurrect the daemon

Open a fresh terminal, then run playwright-cli open once more. The page should load.

From different works, from libraries far and wide

If you prefer not to set the env var, three other paths remain, each with a cost:

Project E2E config (unchanged)

The project's playwright.config.ts already names its browsers explicitly and never depended on the chrome channel:

projects: [
  {
    name: 'chromium',
    use: {
      ...devices['Desktop Chrome'],
      launchOptions: { executablePath: '/usr/bin/chromium' },
    },
  },
  {
    name: 'vivaldi',
    use: {
      launchOptions: { executablePath: '/usr/bin/vivaldi-stable' },
    },
  },
],

Run E2E tests with:

npx playwright test

That uses the project's local @playwright/test dependency, separate from the global @playwright/cli agent tool.

Why would this way work?

Beware of the unseen

• Do not source ~/.zshrc from fish. I made that mistake once. Fish cannot parse zsh syntax:

  Unsupported use of '='. In fish, please use 'set DISABLE_MAGIC_FUNCTIONS "true"'.
  

  Use the fish universal variable above instead.

• The global @playwright/cli and the project's @playwright/test are separate tools. Fixing one does not fix the other. In my case, only the CLI needed attention.

Grimoires and scrolls used in esoteric research

• @playwright/cli npm package - documents the global agent CLI and its default browser channels.
• Playwright browser channels documentation - distinguishes chromium, chrome, and chrome-for-testing.