Playwright Plugin

Agents in the container drive a browser with playwright-cli, and it works out of the box with no configuration: the browser is Google Chrome running on a virtual screen inside the container as a real headed browser (language and timezone follow the host, no automation tells). By default it passes bot-detection sites such as deviceandbrowserinfo, rebrowser, okasi, incolumitas, browserscan, pixelscan and creepjs (same results as a real Chrome on the same machine; see Anti-detection and known limits). Use manyoyo playwright only when you want a different browser.

I want to… → command

I want to…	Command	Where the browser runs
Let the agent search the web / test pages (default)	Nothing, just manyoyo run	Virtual screen in the container
Watch the agent operate the browser	manyoyo playwright up headed	On the host, with a window
Reuse my own Chrome login state	manyoyo playwright up chrome	The Chrome you are using
No desktop, watch it from a web page	manyoyo playwright up vnc	Separate container, via noVNC

Try it by hand in a container (agents use it the same way). First cd into a project directory (the current directory is mounted into the container, so don't run it in $HOME or /):

manyoyo run -n demo -x sleep infinity &      # start a container in the background (it keeps holding this terminal; use another one); ready in about 15 s (see it in podman ps)
podman exec demo playwright-cli open http://host.containers.internal:3000   # docker exec for docker
podman exec demo playwright-cli snapshot     # read the page back (a freshly opened page may still be loading; wait a few seconds)
podman exec demo playwright-cli snapshot | grep -o 'isBot[^,]*'   # e.g. read isBot on a detection page (quotes in the output are escaped)
podman exec demo playwright-cli goto https://example.com    # go to another page (when a session is already open)
manyoyo rm demo                              # remove the container when done

Local services on the host: default and vnc modes use host.containers.internal as above; headed / chrome browsers run on the host, so use http://127.0.0.1:PORT instead.

Only one mode is active at a time. After switching, running containers follow automatically, no rebuild needed; for a container with a browser session already open, go in this order: playwright-cli close → manyoyo playwright up/down → playwright-cli open.

manyoyo playwright status   # current mode; headed / chrome / vnc get a real probe (opens a page); non-zero exit when unusable
manyoyo playwright down     # back to the default mode
manyoyo playwright logs     # browser service logs

Modes

headed: starts a windowed browser service on the host and the agent in the container connects to it. It uses the Google Chrome installed on the host when there is one; otherwise it falls back to a downloaded Chromium and says so (Chromium has a different brand and codecs, so some detection sites can tell). Missing system libraries are only printed as an install command (never a silent sudo). If the system forbids unprivileged user namespaces (e.g. Ubuntu 23.10+) it says so and starts without the sandbox. It needs a graphical session on the host (DISPLAY); on Linux without one use vnc instead.

chrome: drives the Chrome you are using. Open chrome://inspect/#remote-debugging in Chrome and enable it; Chrome shows "Allow remote debugging?" on every new connection (each playwright-cli open, each status); click Allow, otherwise it times out (up waits up to 60 seconds). No container rebuild is needed when Chrome restarts. ⚠️ The agent can act on every site you are logged in to; use only in trusted environments. Extensions are not supported.

vnc: builds a small image on top of the manyoyo image the first time and starts the container my-playwright-vnc; up prints a noVNC URL with the password (http://127.0.0.1:6080/...), and status shows it again. The noVNC and VNC ports are published on 127.0.0.1 only.

Extensions (headed and vnc only): manyoyo playwright ext-download fetches the built-in extensions; load them with up headed --ext-name adguard or --ext-path /abs/dir.

Host-side agents and MCP

• To let an agent on the host use the same browser, the end of the up output has a line like PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_CONFIG=~/.manyoyo/plugin/playwright/host.json claude; the host needs the pinned CLI: npm i -g @playwright/cli@0.1.19 (the in-container client and the host browser service must have exactly the same minor version, otherwise you get 428 Playwright version mismatch; the version is playwrightCliVersion in package.json).
• To use MCP instead of playwright-cli: manyoyo playwright mcp-add prints the in-container registration commands (stdio, follows the current mode automatically, register once).

Anti-detection and known limits

• The browser is Google Chrome stable, driven by patchright-core (an open-source patched Playwright without the CDP automation tell; version and integrity are pinned and verified at build time). Language and timezone come from the browser process's native environment, so pages and Workers agree.
• Behavior is not simulated: mouse paths and typing rhythm are scripted, so behavior-scored sites (such as incolumitas's behavior score) are not guaranteed to pass.
• playwright-cli eval and page.evaluate inside run-code run in the page's main world (same as plain Playwright, so JS globals defined by the page are readable); the image build switches patchright's default "isolated world" back to the main world.
• The timezone follows the host, not the exit IP. When browsing through a proxy, set plugins.playwright.timezoneId to the exit region's timezone, otherwise sites like browserscan note "timezone does not match IP".
• A custom locale / timezoneId takes effect through process environment variables: verified inside the container and on a Linux host; not verified for headed on macOS / Windows (the default, following the host, is unaffected).
• The container has no GPU, so WebGL is software-rendered (SwiftShader); GPU info is not faked. WebRTC is disabled by default (otherwise STUN reveals the host's public IP); set disableWebRTC: false for video-conferencing sites.
• pixelscan shows "Masking detected": a real Chrome on the same machine does too (network and platform differences, not automation tells). With WebRTC disabled by default, pixelscan's location check stays at "Collecting Data…" and gives no consistent/inconsistent verdict ("No automated behavior detected" still works); set disableWebRTC: false to see the full verdict.

Troubleshooting

• Not sure what is broken → manyoyo playwright status
• headed says there is no display → manyoyo playwright up vnc
• Port in use → set plugins.playwright.port in ~/.manyoyo/manyoyo.json
• The container cannot reach the host browser → manyoyo playwright down, then up again (when a mode goes stale, run falls back to the default mode and says so)
• Open a local service running on the host → see above; with docker replace host.containers.internal by host.docker.internal

Options (plugins.playwright, overridable by runs.<name>)

Field	Default	Notes
port	8935	Browser service port for headed / chrome / vnc
vncPort / novncPort	5900 / 6080	Native VNC and noVNC ports in vnc mode
locale / timezoneId	follow the host	Browser language and timezone (when behind a proxy, set the exit region's timezone)
navigatorPlatform	empty (real value)	Force navigator.platform; usually leave unset
disableWebRTC	true	Disable WebRTC (on by default so the host public IP is not exposed; set false for video-conferencing sites)
devtoolsActivePortPath	auto-detect	DevToolsActivePort file for chrome mode
extensionProdversion	132.0.0.0	Chrome version used by ext-download

On Linux, headed / chrome listen on 0.0.0.0 (the only way containers can reach them), protected only by a 32-byte random token; restrict the source with a firewall. On macOS chrome and vnc listen on 127.0.0.1 only; headed also listens on 0.0.0.0 (Playwright rejects the container Host header when bound to loopback only).

See CLI Options and the configuration system.