Chrome Profile Bridge

A Claude Code skill that adds Chrome profile targeting to playwright-cli. Control your real Chrome browser with existing login state — no MCP overhead, no site restrictions, no ecosystem lock-in.

The Problem

You want an AI coding agent to help with tasks in your browser (tax forms, admin dashboards, authenticated apps). But:

Existing Solution	Why It Falls Short
Playwright MCP	Loads ~25 tool definitions per session (~114K tokens). Heavy.
Claude in Chrome	Blocks financial/banking sites. Requires Anthropic login.
Direct CDP	Chrome 136+ blocks remote debugging on default user data dir.
playwright-cli --extension	Works great, but no profile targeting — opens in last-active window.

The Solution

A thin wrapper (pw) that adds --pw-profile to playwright-cli, routing the browser extension connection to the correct Chrome profile.

pw open --extension --pw-profile="Work"     # Opens in your Work profile
playwright-cli goto https://tax-site.com    # Already logged in
playwright-cli snapshot                     # See the page
playwright-cli click e12                    # Interact
playwright-cli close                        # Done

How It Works

Claude Code
  → pw (profile targeting)
    → playwright-cli (browser control, Skill mode, ~27K tokens)
      → Playwright MCP Bridge extension (inside Chrome)
        → Your real Chrome tab (all cookies, login state intact)

Installation

Prerequisites

1. Install @playwright/cli:

   npm install -g @playwright/cli@latest

2. Install the Playwright MCP Bridge Chrome extension in each profile you want to control.

3. Copy the token from the extension's status page and add to your shell:

   echo 'export PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_EXTENSION_TOKEN="your-token-here"' >> ~/.zshrc
   source ~/.zshrc

Install the Skill

Option A: Plugin marketplace (recommended)

/plugin marketplace add yourusername/chrome-profile-bridge
/plugin install chrome-profile-bridge

Option B: Manual

# Install the skill
cp -r skill ~/.claude/skills/chrome-profile-bridge

# Install the pw wrapper
cp scripts/pw ~/.local/bin/pw
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/pw

Option C: Install playwright-cli skill alongside

cd ~/.claude/skills && playwright-cli install --skills

Usage

# List your Chrome profiles
pw list-profiles

# Open default profile
pw open --extension

# Open specific profile
pw open --extension --pw-profile="Profile 1"

# All playwright-cli commands work after opening
playwright-cli goto https://example.com
playwright-cli snapshot
playwright-cli click e15
playwright-cli screenshot
playwright-cli close

Gotchas

• Extension ID: Must use the Chrome Web Store version (mmlmfjhmonkocbjadbfplnigmagldckm). Dev/sideloaded versions have a different ID and won't work with @playwright/cli.
• Token per profile: Each Chrome profile generates its own token. If you control multiple profiles, you'll need the token from the profile you're targeting (or use the same extension across profiles).
• macOS only (for now): The pw script uses macOS Chrome paths. PRs welcome for Linux/Windows support.

License

MIT