fix: default playwright-cli to the chromium it ships

[ashwin153]

Softlight Overview

UX Score: 5/5

Softlight reviewed this change and found no issues.

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The feature installed a browser nothing could reach. Pulling the published devcontainer image and actually driving playwright-cli in it:

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

playwright-cli defaults to the branded chrome channel, not the bundled Chromium that playwright install chromium downloads. So playwright-cli open failed while a perfectly good Chromium sat unused in /usr/local/share/ms-playwright.

Changes

• src/playwright/devcontainer-feature.json — adds PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_BROWSER=chromium to containerEnv; bumps the feature to 1.1.0.
• test/playwright/ubuntu.sh — asserts the env var, and opens/closes a browser with no --browser flag.
• NOTES.md / README.md — explain why the variable is set.

How this was verified

Pulled ghcr.io/orianna-ai/devcontainer@sha256:d9aec848… and ran it as uid 1000 with HOME=/data/home on an empty volume, matching the sandbox pod:

	result
playwright-cli open (no flag), before	✗ 'chrome' is not found
playwright-cli open --browser=chromium	✓ browser opened, screenshot written
playwright-cli open with PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_BROWSER=chromium	✓ navigated to a real page, 1280×720 PNG rendered

Why the existing tests missed it

Every check in the current scenario passed against the broken image — they verified the CLI was on PATH, the env var was set, and Chromium was on disk and readable. All true, and all insufficient: nothing ever launched a browser. The new check is the one that fails without this fix.

--browser still overrides per command, so callers that pass it explicitly (design_doctor's capture runner does) are unaffected.

Testing

pre-commit run --all-files passes. The scenario needs Docker, so it runs in CI.

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Generated by Claude Code

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Note

Low Risk
Container env default and documentation only; no auth, data, or API surface changes beyond making the existing CLI work out of the box.

Overview
Fixes playwright-cli open failing in the devcontainer when no --browser flag is passed: the CLI defaulted to the branded chrome channel at /opt/google/chrome/chrome even though the feature only installs Chromium under PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH.

The Playwright devcontainer feature now sets PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_BROWSER=chromium in containerEnv (feature version 1.1.0), with matching notes in NOTES.md / README.md. Per-command --browser overrides remain unchanged.

Tests assert the env var and add an end-to-end open/close without --browser, so CI catches “browser on disk but unreachable” regressions.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit 341d398. Configure here.}

Greptile Summary

The PR makes the Playwright feature default to its installed Chromium build rather than the unavailable branded Chrome channel.

• Adds PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_BROWSER=chromium to the feature environment and bumps the feature version to 1.1.0.
• Adds a functional no-flag browser launch check.
• Documents the default and the per-command override behavior.

Confidence Score: 5/5

The PR appears safe to merge, with the changed default aligned to the browser installed by the feature and covered by a functional launch test.

The feature now selects its bundled Chromium for no-flag CLI launches, while explicit per-command browser selection remains documented as available, and no concrete regression was established.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
src/playwright/devcontainer-feature.json	Sets the Playwright CLI browser default to the Chromium distribution installed by the feature and bumps the feature version.
test/playwright/ubuntu.sh	Verifies the environment default and functionally opens and closes a browser without an explicit browser flag.
src/playwright/README.md	Documents why Chromium is selected by default and how callers can override it.
src/playwright/NOTES.md	Adds matching generated feature documentation for the browser default.

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